


Experiment 7

by His_Sacred_Shampoo



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Gravity Falls
Genre: Artistic License- Jenova's mechanics, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, Gen, Kids being creepy, Light Angst, Minor Canonical Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-02-14 00:15:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2170695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/His_Sacred_Shampoo/pseuds/His_Sacred_Shampoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bill and Gideon jump through a multi-dimensional portal.<br/>Dipper and Mabel jump through a multi-dimensional portal to stop Bill and Gideon.<br/>Grunkle Stan jumps through a multi-dimensional portal to bring them all home.</p><p>After arriving in a strange world called Gaia, the Pines find themselves in a situation that quickly spirals out of control, involving bickering clones, busty barmaids, and one dead dude that can't seem to stay dead. Without the journal to guide them, can they manage to stop Gideon, unravel the mysteries of Stanford's past, play monopoly with Loz, and make it home safe? They'll try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Thirty Years Ago

Stanford was interested in the journals. Stanly was interested in Jenova.

Both of these things changed the lives of the Pines twins in multitudes of ways. The journals, written by an unknown author, had been found sealed away with a multitude of creatures of equally mysterious origin. There were notes on these so called ‘experiments’, each one as horrifying and seemingly impossible as the next. Stanford read over these notes, but he left them to his brother after discovering the first journal.  
Bound in red leather and embossed with a 6-fingered hand, the books contained secrets about Gravity Falls- things even the locals hadn’t discovered yet. Stanford read until the wee hours of the morning, feeling his knowledge of the world around him grow. Some of the book was encoded, in ciphers ranging from simple substitution to whole other languages invented by the author. Stanford devoted all his energy to the journal, and upon the revelation that his book was one of a trilogy, set out to find the book’s companions almost single-mindedly. 

It took him ages to find the next journal. He sort of stumbled upon it by accident while exploring the cave behind the Gravity Falls waterfall. All things considered, it was a terrible hiding spot. The pages were warped with moisture. Miraculously, the writing wasn’t. After he found that one, the other one came to him in a much different way. 

He found himself cornered in an alleyway by an ancient man in a three-piece suit. “Friend, we know what you’re up to,” the man said in a gravelly voice. He pulled something red and rectangular from the inside of his suit jacket. “You better give it back when you’re done with it, hear?” Stan took the book with trembling hands. The man turned on his heels to walk away. Stan called after him, “How?”  
Without looking back, the man said, “You’ll know when you know!" 

That really happened.

If these discoveries spurred one Stan to action, it halted the other. Stanly’s preoccupation with doing nothing but sitting and looking at Experiment 7 worried Stanford, who was always worried for his twin’s safety. All the experiments were strange in some way or another, but Experiment 7 was something else. According to the notes, it had the ability to regenerate lost limbs, to take on the genetic traits of those around it, even to read minds. There was something else- a ‘reunion’. Even the author of the notes couldn’t seem to describe what this meant. Experiment 7’s purpose was unknown, as was the case of most of the experiments, but its nature was much more worrying. For one thing, it seemed to talk to Stanly. For another, he seemed to listen to it.

There would be days when Stanly would do nothing but sit in front of its tank and stare at the thing, his rugged features illuminated by a faint bluish glow. He lost an awful lot of weight in a short period of time and bags developed under his eyes. After a long day of journal-searching or mystery-solving, Stanford would return to the shack and greet his twin, who would say nothing back.  
As much as Stanford hated to admit it, he feared for his brother’s sanity. The bottom line was that the relationship between his brother and the experiment was not healthy.

He caught him during a rare moment away from the creature. While he was relieved to see Stanly eating breakfast and reading the Sunday paper in a facsimile of ordinariness, Stanford knew that he had to intervene. If he didn’t do it now, he might never have another chance.

In very frank terms, Stanford told his brother that he looked for all the world like a man that was losing his mind. “Hey, man. Relax,” Stanly said placidly. “I can control her.” With a grunt, he returned to his scrambled eggs. This abruptness only served to worry Stanford more. 

“Her?” he inquired. 

“Yes. Her.”

Stanford watched Stanly put down the paper he was reading. Both men frowned. Stanly ate another forkful of eggs. Between bites, he remarked, “You know, brother, she doesn’t like being called a name as insignificant as ‘Experiment 7.’” Little bits of egg flew out of his mouth. Stanford pulled up a chair across from him and sat, noting with a chill that his twin hadn’t made eye contact with him in two weeks. Spurred by this, he asked, “Why not?” 

Stanly shrugged. “It’s dehumanizing,” he said flatly. He picked up his newspaper again and shook his head. It was obvious he felt the conversation was over.

Stanford was infuriated. He banged his fist on the table.

“It’s not human!”

His brother said nothing. He raised a mug of coffee to his lips and took a long, slow sip. Exasperated, Stanford pushed his chair away from the table and stood, knocking Stanly’s plate of eggs onto the floor. The two met eyes. Stanford had been expecting to see anger or exhaustion in them. He was shocked to find that, other than stubble and the dark circles under his eyes, he looked like the Stanly Pines he remembered.  
Grunting, Stanly bent down to pick his plate off the floor. “Well, what does she want to be called?” 

He heard Stanly take another long, loud sip of coffee. 

“She says her name is Jenova.”

-  
“Stanly, I’m sorry, but we had to do it.” 

“Don’t apologize, man. We did what we had to do.”

The two looked at each other. Since childhood, they had always been alike in ways that went beyond their faces. They had the same love for knowledge and the same goal of understanding the mysteries of the world. Stanford dropped his eyes. Since their discoveries, the twins had grown apart in ways that couldn’t be fixed overnight. Both Pines twins knew that.

“What was it about… that thing that you liked so much?” Stanford asked, not caring if he sounded insensitive. Stanly leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “You wouldn’t understand, even if I spent an hour talking about it. She- I mean, Experiment 7, had this way of talking.” This was worrying to Stanford, given that nothing in the notes on it said it was capable of speech. “And what it talked about- this paradise, a place it called ‘the promised land’, where there’s nothing but energy and peace- it just…” 

Both men sighed. “Well, it’s better this way,” conceded Stanly. They looked at their handiwork one last time. The container housing Experiment 7 was now covered by a metal statue of an angel, created by the twins together. The angel’s body covered the thing’s body, and the wings of the angel obscured the rest of the container from view. Unceremoniously, the two men covered it with a plan white dropcloth. Since the idea came to him to build such a covering, Stanly was more of himself, which made Stanford fear even more the idea that his twin had fallen under a witch’s spell.

Stanly crossed his arms out of habit. “So, what’s the plan now?” 

Stanford rubbed his temples. “My three books are connected somehow. Right in the middle of each one, there’s a blueprint for something. Encoded in the third journal, there’s a message from the author that says that it has something to do with travelling across other dimensions.” He opened up one of his journals to the blue print page for his twin to see. Stanly squinted at it. “So, you think we can dump Jenova-” here, he started to cough nervously- “I mean, ah, Experiment 7 into another dimension?” Both Stans grinned, their minds in synch.

“Yep- then, after that, I burn the journals or something,” Stanford added, feeling the urge to cross his fingers behind his back.

“And then life goes back to normal, right? We’re brothers again?”

Stanford nodded. “We’ll always be brothers, no matter what happens,” he said. He smiled at his twin reassuringly. Suddenly, he found himself caught in a bear hug. “Nothing can stop the great Stan Pines!” Stanly said with a grin.

But both men knew it wouldn't be that easy.  
-  
“It’s working!” Stanford shouted. “It’s working!” 

His enthusiastic grin was shared by his partner- in fact; most of his face was shared by his partner. Most of his genetic makeup was shared by his partner- the only difference being the cleft in the other’s chin. This made sense, being that Stanford Pines and his partner, were also identical twins.

Stanly and Stanford Pines both rushed into the bunker’s inner room where The Machine was being kept. This thing, supposedly a portal to all of the multi-verse, was lit up like a Christmas tree. The overwhelming blue light was impossible to look straight at. The two raised their hands to their eyes and grinned.

“After all these years…” Stanly said quietly, his words lost in the hum of the machine. 

“Let’s go get the experiment!” yelled Stanford. “Quickly! We don’t want this thing on for too long.” Stanly replied, “Why? Do the journals say anything about what we’re about to do?” Both men took a deep breath. “I want to make sure we’re doing it right. What we’re about to do can’t be undone,” noted Stanly. Stanford nodded in agreement. “There ain’t no getting off of this train we’re on now,” Stan said with a grim smile.

Inside The Machine’s control room, there was a…thing. Charitably named Experiment 7, it was about to be sent away. It was perched on a sturdy metal roller, which both men pushed at. It was separated from them only by a canvas drop-cloth, something that unnerved both of them. “Do you think this’ll work?” Stanford said, grunting.

“It had better!” Stanly answered, with an equal amount of grunting. 

The thing was entering The Machine’s room, inch by inch. It took no small amount of effort- Experiment 7, and the thing it was housed in, were both heavy. But the twins focused all their effort into wheeling the thing into The Machine’s room, out of their lives.


	2. Another Fine Mess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper, Mabel, and Manly Dan try their hand at dragon hunting.

Ah, sunsets.

 

They just might be the most wonderful thing a person can see. Any kind of sunset. Imagine for yourself a sunset on a beach, and you know it will be different than a sunset in the Alps, even if you’ve never been to either. It goes beyond mere sight- the smells of brine, the sound of wind, the pain of salt eating into last week’s cuts instead feeling every bit of accidentally exposed skin freeze, then burn, then numb with cold. Ninety-three million miles away from the sun, the sun had set in an Oregon town called Gravity Falls, where two twelve year old twins were dealing with things a lot more important than watching sunsets.  
Dipper Pines took out his journal, bound with red leather and embossed with a golden handprint and the number ‘3’. He opened it to a page. Pausing briefly to adjust his hat, he continued. “Okay,” he began. “This is real important, so listen closely. According to the journal, this dragon only appears once each month, on a random night. If we see it, you can’t make any loud noises, any sudden movements-“

“Who’re you talking to, son?” Manly Dan asked. 

Dipper looked up and around the small wooden rowboat ferrying them across the lake. “Wait, Mabel!” he said, alarmed. “She was with us when we left the dock!” Dan’s expression tightened. Infuriated, he said “Are you saying I can’t look after two kids in a rowboat?!” He clenched a fist that was as big as Dipper’s face. Dipper was suddenly aware of how much worse sweat smells when you’re terrified for your twelve year-long life. 

If you look closely, sunsets are testaments to how much people suck, and really put the fact that you just parked in a handicapped spot in perspective. Someday, the sun will expand and devour you, your loved ones, and that handicapped parking space.

“Hey! Hey! Hey! Dipper! Over here! Look at me!”

Both of them turned their heads in the direction of the noise.

A few yards away on the edge of the lake stood a soaking-wet Mabel. She waved her arms at them. “I fell off trying to drink water like a cat!” Faintly, they heard her laughing. “Cats,” she shouted with finality.  
Dipper pointed to her. “Manly Dan, we need to get her before the dragon shows up!” Dan nodded and grabbed an oar. Raising it above his head, he yelled, “This isn’t over, kid!” and started paddling like he was possessed. Dipper struggled to hang on to the sides of the boat. They hit on the shore hard. At the last moment, Dipper lost his grip on the boat and went flying forward. His head met the bottom of the boat with a worryingly loud sound. 

“Vengeance!” cried Manly Dan, raising his fist skywards.

Mabel came rushing to her twin’s aid by jumping in the boat and helping him to sit upright. “Dipper, are you OK?” she asked. Dipper stood and stretched a bit.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he lied. Manly Dan got out and pushed the boat into the water. “But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that if we see the dragon, you can’t scare it away.” He sat down and picked up his journal again. “It says here the dragon never forgets a face. If you blow this for us, we’ll never get another chance to see it.”

Mabel blew a raspberry. She adjusted her sweater and folded her arms. “What’s with all this ‘you’ talk? You gotta think optimistic, Dipper! I’m just as capable of screwing stuff as you are!” 

“If not more,” Dipper muttered to himself. Mabel punched him in the arm with a grin, to which Dipper winced. He started seeing double and Mabel’s electric yellow sweater began to burn at his eyes.

“That’s the spirit, bro!” she proclaimed as Manly Dan sat in the boat again and resumed rowed them to the waterfall cave.  
-  
There’s a very important thing to keep in mind while hunting for any mythical creature; always pack a book or something to ease the brain-numbing boredom of waiting for said mythical creature to appear. Of course, given Dipper was waiting with Mabel and Manly Dan, there was a lot more numbing his brain than boredom. Pretty soon, a pattern of how Dipper’s time would be spent until the dragon appeared became clear.

She’d say something like “How’d you get your arms so muscle-y, Mister Manly Dan?”

He would reply along the lines of “I WAS A C-SECTION CHILD!”

Dipper would then shush them, in the manner of…shushing. 

And so it went for an hour. Neither Mabel nor Dan ran out of noisy things to get excited about; conversely, Dipper was running out of patience. There’s only so much one can take while sitting on the cold, rocky floor of a mysterious old cave in the middle of the night. After Dan said the secret to getting hair as thick as his was rubbing carrot juice on your scalp, Dipper decided he’d just about had enough. He had an awful headache, and it seemed like his vision was getting worse. A lesser man would’ve called it quits long before; however, Dipper was not a man.

“Mabel, can you please get focused on what matters here?” he said, sighing. Mabel giggled and ran her fingers through her brown hair. The noise intensified Dipper’s headache.

“I am focused on what matters, Dipper!” She smiled at Manly Dan. “Friendship!”

“What about adventure, Mabel? Doesn’t that matter to you?” Dipper said, inadvertently sounding more insecure than intended. Dan closed his eyes, plugged his ears, and turned around, and said, “Pretend I’m not here, strange children!”

Mabel winced. “Of course adventure matters to me, Dipper. But all summer it’s been nothing but adventure, all the time!” She hid her head in her hands. “I’m all focused out. Aren’t you a little tired?”

But her words fell on deaf ears- literally. Dipper’s headache was escalating to the point where he was having trouble hearing her. He grimaced and closed his eyes, grateful for the momentary quiet.

Mabel saw it first. From their vantage point behind the water, she saw the outline of something about the size of a van lean into the lake and take a drink. She gasped and shook Dipper’s arm. She whispered, “Dipper! Look! The dragon’s here!” Dipper moaned. Mabel looked around nervously. She stood and walked to the edge of the cave, peering through the falls at the thing. To Dipper, she said, “Dipper, you have to see this!” She ran over to Dipper and tugged his arm. “It’s got these blue scales that look like crystal- and it’s got wings- and-“

Dipper sighed and put a finger to his lips. “Mabel, the dragon might show up any second. I don’t want you to scare it off.” 

Mabel stamped her foot. “Again with the ‘Don’t mess this up, Mabel’! Unless you want to miss your one chance at seeing a real, live dragon, you had better hurry up and get over here!” 

Unbeknownst to Mabel, the dragon was perking up her ears. She looked around the lake carefully, pausing briefly at the waterfall. There came no further noises. With this, she continued drinking.

Back in the cave, the plot marched on. Dipper cracked his back and stood. “Mabel, I’ve got a terrible headache, I’m seeing double, my hearing’s all wonky- so unless it’s really important, I’d appreciate a little quiet!”  
Mabel huffed. “Dipper!” she wailed, dragging him up from the ground. “You have to look right now, or else!” She turned her brother’s head forcefully to where the creature was. “Do you see it now?!” she said at the top of her lungs.

Dipper’s vision cleared just in time to see the beautiful midnight-blue dragon with scales like crystal fly away.  
-  
“I can’t believe you- after all those warnings and your insisting you were mature enough to handle tagging along, you still ruined everything!”

“Dipper, I keep telling you, there wasn’t another way!” 

Walking home through a forest that you know is haunted at one in the morning is no one’s idea of a fun time. Yet, it’s hard to say whether the Pines twins would rather be travelling separately or together at this particular point in time. Sibling bickering is bad enough, but it’s even worse when dragons and emotionally unstable lumberjacks get involved.

Mabel looked at her feet. “I’m sorry, Dipper.” Frowning, she added, “You should’ve said you were feeling as bad as you are before we got to the cave, Dipper. You worried me.” 

Dipper crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. “So it’s my fault, huh? My headache scared the dragon away? I told you to be quiet. I told you that we only had one chance. And your screaming was what blew it!”  
Gesticulating wildly, Mabel retorted, “Tomorrow, there’ll be something else in that journal! Some other crazy and possibly deadly thing you want to go hunting down! Why don’t you forget tonight happened and go back to solving the riddle of the Sphinx or something, and leave me out of it, huh? Since all I do is get in your way?”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

That pretty much killed any chance at small talk on the way to the shack. Walking through Gravity Falls’s woods at night was pretty bad, but walking through them at night knowing your best friend was angry with you was terrible.


	3. With Friends Like You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gideon has nightmares about one psychopathic d00d with a questionable grasp on reality and wakes up to another.

Nothing. Nothing. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Nothing. Forty, fifty, sixty, nothing. Seventyeightyninety nothing. 

They were nothing. He felt nothing.

The Shinra building would soon be nothing.

The entire Shinra Company would be nothing.

Unpaid interns were nothing to him. Executive employees were nothing to him. President Shinra himself was nothing. It was impressive for a night’s work, considering he wasn’t even a nihilist.

He found the president sitting at his desk, smoking cigars all the way from Costa del Sol. Their noxious smell permeated the air around them. Sephiroth’s lip curled. It spoiled an otherwise picturesque, high-class office, two adjectives that simply did not fit Shinra.

He allowed himself a rare grin and walked right up to Shinra’s desk. The man prided himself on his mind and made a resolve to commit everything about this next moment, even the cigar fumes, to memory. The sound of his boots on the solid marble floor, his reflection in the polished mirrors behind the president’s desk, the sudden gasping noise Shinra made when he saw the man with the silver hair walking toward him- he was aware of every little detail. The pathetic man opened his mouth to plea for his life, but the words never left his mouth. 

The man walked around the desk. Shinra didn’t move a muscle. He had accepted that he was a dead man. The Masamune entered him through the back. Shinra slumped over, and he, too, was nothing. His last words were gasped and incomprehensible. Blood stained his expensive business suit, and the killer felt joy at the knowledge that it would never be washed out.

He moved his hand to remove the Masamune when he had an agonizing headache. He massaged his temples, upset at Mother ruining his moment of glory. The headache intensified. Feeling like an invisible hand was squeezing tightly on his brain, he fell to his knees. The same man that had just killed off an entire company was reduced to moaning in agony. 

“Not…now, Mother, please…” he pleaded, beating his head against the marble floor. He raised his head and saw his reflection in the polished windows overlooking Midgar. He gasped out “Reunion, reunion!”  
The man stood again and walked right out of the glass.

Its owner had gone, leaving no sign that he was there save for the whole in the window and the Masamune. The sword, almost as long as its owner was tall, protruded from Shinra’s back. It reflected the soft light of the chandeliers harshly, as if it knew what the man in the black coat had used it for.

Gideon sat up, sweating.

It was the first dream he had had since his arrest that didn’t revolve around the journal, the amulet, or Mabel, or all three. He turned on his side to face his cell wall. The only thing that separated his cell from every other convict’s were the fifteen tally marks by his pillow. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and tried to relax, but felt like his brain had betrayed him.

He was grateful in a twisted way for the reprieve from the dreams he normally had. All the same, he wondered what the man with the silver hair was supposed to represent. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. His mind was still racing from the dream. He smirked. To himself, he said, “It’s tough having white hair,” and relaxed.  
-  
Gideon found himself in the middle of another dream, one of the ones where you feel like you’re falling. Gideon was startled at seeing the black coat and silver hair of the man in his other dream in his peripheral vision. He tried to wake himself in a fit of lucidity, but found he was stuck. The feeling of falling intensified. He could see that ridiculously long sword again, but this time it was in his hands. He was the one falling.  
Looking down, he saw a marble dais. On it, a very conflicted-looking man with improbable hair approached a girl in a long, pink dress, who was on her knees, praying. Trapped, Gideon could do nothing but fall.  
The girl in pink looked up at the young man with the spiked hair. Neither said anything. 

She was still kneeling with her hands clasped when Gideon- or the man in black- or whoever- completed his fall and forced that terrible longsword with the curved blade into her back.

Dimly, Gideon knew the girl was dead, and he knew he had killed her, but he found no remorse. Gideon couldn’t do anything but watch as the girl’s body went limp. She slumped over, her braided brown hair swinging. He removed the sword and sneered as the girl fell, her spine shattered and her life gone. 

Gideon shook in a last ditch effort to free himself from the nightmare. The scenery changed, becoming what looked like his cell with better lighting. Relieved, Gideon found he was him again, but he couldn’t think of anything else except the beautiful girl and the man that killed her. Dimly, he sensed that someone else was in the dream with him.

“Welcome back- failure.” 

Gideon didn’t even have to look at the shadow to know what it belonged to. He sensed a presence coming from it, old and dangerous, and decidedly triangular.  
“Welcome yourself, short-stack. I’m here to bust you out.”

Bill Cipher’s voice filled the cell. The demon ran his eye over their surroundings. Even in a dream, the cell wasn’t much. “Why are you letting them keep you here? If you were working with me, I’d have you out of here.” Gideon’s head, which was still turned away from Bill, shook.

“You failure,” Gideon spat out again. “It’s because of your incompetence I’m stuck here, in this place.” He tightened his fists, his brow furrowing. “Because you failed me,” he said, his rage intensifying, “the Pines twins turned the entire town against me. Even if I got out of here, I’m ruined. I can never go back to being widdle ol’ Gideon Gleeful, child psychic and America’s sweetheart. Mabel’s heart will be closed to me- forever! Her brother has both his journal and mine, and if he finds the other one, this world will be his to rule!”

Gideon drew another breath and turned towards the direction of the voice, the only indication of Bill’s whereabouts. Not without difficulty, he lifted himself onto his bed that was almost too high off the floor. “You failed me, and you’re here to fail me again!” he said, his words punctuated by the drumming of fingernails against the metal of his bed.  
-  
“Whatever it takes, I’m gonna make a deal with you, kid.” 

Bill said it pretty plainly, like he was saying, ‘I’m gonna take you for ice cream, kid,’ or ‘I’m gonna go to your dance recitals since your parents have obviously neglected you, kid,’ instead of, ‘I’m gonna force you to help me with this underhanded scheme of mine, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. Kid.’ He made himself visible, his trademark yellow glow illuminating the dream cell. With a wave of his hand, he made the ground shake. The cinderblocks of the cell fell away, and behind them was a blank white landscape as far as the eye could see.

This did not seem to upset Gideon in the slightest. He looked the demon square in the eye. “If you want me to help you, you need to prove to me you’re not going to fail again!” He gritted his teeth.

Bill’s yellow light flickered with his laughter. “You humans sure can be interesting when you want to be. Quit acting like I don’t terrify you, kid!” Bill’s form changed, becoming an image of Gideon’s face, frozen with fear, the first time they met.

Gideon kept his stare up, determined.  
“All right, all right, you’ve got me. Whatever it takes, kid.” Bill returned to his normal appearance.

The white-haired youth didn’t hesitate for a moment. “I want my amulet back.”

Bill winced in a rare moment of discomfort. “Kid, I’m a dream demon. I don’t work well with real things. We don’t mix,” he said dismissively.

Gideon turned his head and sneered. “Then you’re of no use to me.”

Hurriedly, Bill amended, “Now, now, hold your horses, Napoleon. If I can show you where to get another amulet- heck, I can show you multiple amulets! -would that be enough to get you to see things my way?”

Gideon chuckled in response.


	4. Moderate Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you get when you cross a TV show with a video game? An inside joke that should’ve stayed between friends. But it’s too late now. It always was too late. I’m sorry, Carol. I’m so sorry.

The Pines twins were already having a pretty bad night before learning that their archenemy had gotten out of the big house and was breaking into theirs. Really, that was the last thing they needed. 

The duo were walking out of the forest and around the front of the Mystery Shack when they saw pale yellow light coming from the gift shop. The two looked at each other and silently put aside their fighting. They walked up to the window. Standing on their tiptoes, they were tall enough to look in. It was dark out, but the light coming from the Mystery Shack was enough for them to see the unmistakable silhouette of Gravity Fall’s resident nine year old with hair as tall as he was. 

“What’s Gideon doing here?” Dipper asked. The two crouched down. “I thought that lunatic was arrested!”

Mabel blinked. “Well, he must have got un-arrested,” she whispered. The two went back to standing on their tiptoes and looking in through the window. As they looked on, they saw him approach a vending machine, and then walk through it. The two gasped in synch as the yellow glow faded. 

Mabel rubbed his eyes. “Dipper, did you just see what I did?” Her brother nodded. She rested her chin on his hand. “You just saw Lil’ Gideon walk through the vending machine, surrounded by a weird yellow light?”

Again, he nodded. Mabel sighed.

Dipper ran his hands through his hair. “All right, Mabel, we can panic later,” he said. “Let’s go get Grunkle Stan.”  
-  
In the passageway behind the vending machine, Gideon was having a rough night, too. Unfortunately, he had no one to complain to. If he tried it, Bill would give him an exasperated, “You think you can run this body better, kid?” and go back to doing whatever he had been doing before.

Bill had been truthful. Getting out of prison was a breeze when you're body’s a reality-warping demon. What was really terrible was what happened after they were out of the big house. Gideon started having second thoughts when he found himself forced out of his body and reduced to nothing but his own consciousness. Gideon wanted to retort, “I’ve been running this body for nine years,” but lacked the courage to. Leasing your body to an admittedly insane demon was a pretty intimidating experience.

Bill wasn’t in the best of moods.

“Can you believe that old man charmed everything past here? Thanks to him, my magic’s not working.” Bill said something in a language Gideon neither recognized nor wanted to recognize.  
“What now? Do we just turn back around and go back to prison?” Gideon asked the thing controlling his body through clenched teeth. 

“Not an option, little-man-of-horrors. I-I mean, we’re- nope, no, I mean I am still going through with the mission to get you your replacement amulets. We’re just gonna have to adjust a few things,” Bill said.  
-  
The twins ran into their home, yelling “Uncle Stan! We just saw Gideon in the gift shop!” as soon as they could catch their breath. Stan emerged from the living room in his black business suit, which was uncharacteristically rumpled. He scratched his back and yawned. 

“You two sure about that? It is pretty late. This might be one of those signs that you’re losing it,” he commented, looking at Dipper. In spite of their surroundings, Mabel laughed a little. Dipper blushed and looked away. Stan shrugged. “Look, kids. I’ve had a long day. I locked the gift shop up tight. I don’t have time for this.”

Dipper crossed his arms. “Uncle Stan, we’re not crazy. Gideon was just in the Mystery Shack! We saw him walk through a vending machine-”

Stan’s eyes widened. Suddenly full of energy, he ran out of the door. The Pines twins followed close behind him. They caught up to Stan as he was fiddling with his key ring, trying to find the right one for the gift shop. “Ugh, if that kid really did get into the vending machine-” He stopped himself when he saw that Dipper and Mabel were listening. Both of them folded their arms.

“What’s behind the vending machine?” Dipper asked. Stan shook his head nervously. In the dim light of the moon, it was hard to notice he was sweating. He may have been about to answer, but then his trembling hands found the right key. He opened the door to the gift shop.

“All right, kids. I don’t want to hear anything from either of you about this, you hear?” He assumed the twins nodded and sighed. The three of them strolled into the shop and up to the vending machine. The twins were silent as they watched their elderly uncle punch a series of buttons on the machine’s keypad.  
-  
“Are you sure this is a good plan?” Gideon thought-said nervously.

Gideon laughed. “Boy, it sure does stink having to choose your words, huh, kid?” Gideon winced. Bill’s voice sounded like it was invented to give people headaches. “And I never said it was a good plan. I just said if you want that amulet, you’re gonna have to follow it.” 

Gideon sighed. “You are gonna give me back my body when this is all through, right?” 

Fortunately for both of them, Bill wasn’t given time to respond. Just then, Stanford Pines and the twins rushed by them, towards an elevator. “You can’t tell me they don’t see us- or at least you,” Gideon thought. Bill had evicted Gideon from his own body and left him a spirit. According to Bill, he was imperceptible to everyone. 

“They can. I’ve just persuaded them not to.” Gideon waited for further explanation, but none came. “Now, shut up and watch what the old man puts into the elevator,” Bill responded.

Gideon obeyed- he wasn’t in a position where he could do much else. The two children huddled around him. Nervously, Gideon approached them. None of the three seemed to have noticed Gideon. Stan put four symbols into the elevator’s keypad- things Gideon didn’t recognize but Bill did. 

The Pines got on the elevator and descended.  
-  
Stan and the twins were unaware they were being followed. The elevator deposited them somewhere several floors under their house.

“Now, remember, I said I don’t want either of you asking me about this,” Stan said, almost threateningly. He stepped out of the elevator into a dimly lit room, and looked around. Grunting, he said, “If Gideon did get behind my vending machine, he’d be in here. Are you two coming?”

Dipper and Mabel stepped out of the elevator and into the lab.

Dipper looked around, not that there was much to see. The only light in the room came from the machines that filled up the room. 

“Uncle Stan? Why is it so dark in here?” Mabel asked, narrowly avoiding walking into a wall. Looking closer, Dipper noticed there was a faint bluish light in the room, with no apparent source. “Yeah, how do you see down here?” Dipper asked. “Wherever down here is…” he added under his breath.

“Normally I have a lantern. Tonight I have you two,” Stan answered. He started walking along rows of machines, his young charges following behind. It seemed like the blue light was getting stronger. “And I specifically said no questions.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally published before Sock Opera Introduced how Gravity Falls does possessions, and I'm sorry. Later chapters will pretty explicitly follow Sock Opera's model. Thank you for understanding.


	5. Fools Rush In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to Inside Jokes Are Only Funny Inside the Original Audience, where things continue to happen!

Gideon curled his lip, still not wholly on board with his body being controlled by Bill. He hadn’t been thrilled with it before, but now that he was stuck in an elevator with him, his confidence in Bill dropped sharply. It was like Bill-as-Gideon was a can of soda and being in the elevator was rapidly shaking him up. He could do nothing but watch as his body shook uncontrollably, bounced off the walls, and laughed about it. The ding! the elevator door made as it reached the bottom floor was the most wonderful noise Gideon had heard since going to jail.

Bill-as-Gideon clambered out of the elevator and Gideon trailed alongside him. “Are you going to explain why we’ve broken into the Mystery Shack and snuck into the basement?” Gideon said, looking around.  
Bill put a finger to his lips. “That’s asking me for the truth! And neither of us can handle the truth!” He looked away. “Now shut up. People might not be able to hear you, but they can hear me, and I’m more important to the universe than you are!”

Without looking, Bill walked right into Mabel. 

Her eyes widened at seeing her old enemy. “Gideon?” she said in disbelief. Stan and Dipper came running. 

“Gideon? What are you doing here? Weren’t you in jail?” Dipper asked, before being pushed aside by Stan. “Get out of here now, you white-haired loon!” he said. “That’s an order!”

Bill rubbed his palms. “Yes, Dipper, I was in prison- but don’t worry, I’m better now.” He sauntered up to Stan, smiling. “Listen to me, old man. Is it true that you’ve re-activated the machine?” The two met eyes.  
“How on Earth did you know about the-?” Stan began in disbelief. “Hey- wait- come back here!” he yelled after Bill, who started skipping further down the hallway.

Bill turned to look at Stan and the twins, who were running after him. He grinned from ear to ear. “So it’s true? It’s working again?” He laughed himself into a fit. Gideon began wondering what he had gotten himself into by making a deal with him. 

Bill skipped and laughed himself all the way through the basement and into a wall. Halted for a moment, the Pines caught up to him. He righted himself and looked around. The room they were in was filled with a blue light strong enough to see each other by. In the middle of it was a massive machine, reaching from the top of the ceiling to the floor, shaped vaguely like three circles linked by a triangle. The twins looked around, and then to Stan. Stan sighed.

“Gideon, you little maniac, you don’t know what you’re doing. Don’t you dare mess with the portal!” Stan said, almost pleading. Bill stared at the machine, the source of the light. He walked up to one of the metal circles and stood on it. A very overwhelmed Gideon trailed behind him.

Bill raised his arms and yelled, “Ispo facto! Beate Hirsch, ora pro me! Semper ubi sub ubi!” The blue light grew stronger. The Pines family could do nothing but look on in horror as Bill finished the spell. Beating his chest, he declared, “Licet adire! Noli molestare!” The light of the machine enveloped Bill and Gideon wholly, and the two disappeared.

-

The first thing the twins did was waste precious time staring open-mouthed at where Gideon had just been.

“Uncle Stan- what just happened?” Dipper asked. He tugged at his curly brown hair and began pacing frantically. Beginning to hyperventilate, Mabel added, “Where on Earth did Gideon go?”

Stan rubbed his temples. “Nowhere on Earth, that’s for sure.” He looked at the machine in an odd way. “I’m gonna level with you. Thirty years ago, I used this machine to teleport something to the far ends of time and space. Then something terrible happened. After that, I deactivated it and haven’t even started it up until now.”

Dipper stopped pacing. “So, what do we do now, Grunkle Stan?” 

“Only thing we can do is wait here and see if Gideon comes back out. If not, I say we just don’t even worry about it.”

Dipper nodded and looked away, but Mabel was not as easily won. Beginning to hyperventilate, she said, “But Grunkle Stan, we have to go after him! If we don’t, who knows what he’ll do on the other side of the portal?”

Stan folded his arms. “We will wait here until morning, and if he doesn’t, we leave and forget this ever happened.” He narrowed his eyes at Mabel. “That’s final.”

Mabel stamped her foot. “That’s stupid!” She grabbed Dipper by the wrist and pulled him up to the circle plate Gideon had just stood on. Dipper fought to get free but Mabel did not relax her grip. “I’m sorry, Stan, but I have to do this!” She closed her eyes. “Ispo facto!” she said, raising her arms as the light of the machine got stronger and harsher. 

Stan walked up to the bottom of the dais. “You get down from there now, Mabel. I’m not playing around!”

She took a deep breath. “Neither am I! Beate Hirsch, ora pro me!”

Dipper stopped struggling. "Mabel, do you want to get us all killed? Because that's what's going to happen if we go messing with the far ends of time and space-"

His sister looked at him and dropped his arm. Dipper turned to leave as she said, "I thought you liked adventure, Dipper! Semper ubi, sub ubi" in an almost threatening tone of voice. "Are you gonna chicken out?"

Defeated, Dipper grabbed Mabel's hand.  
-  
Stan promised himself that he would regret not going up on the platform and pulling Mabel down himself as long as he lived. He did not out of fear of being pulled to wherever in the universe the device was set to take people, and because Mabel had started the spell. Leaving a spell unfinished was just as terrible as watching her finish reciting it and being swallowed by the machine’s hideous blue light. 

He sighed and walked over to his desk outside the machine’s room. From the desktop, he picked up a picture. It was faded and torn in some places, and the antique wooden frame around it was cracked. Vaguely, you could make out the silhouette of a face that looked remarkably like Stan’s in it. He looked at it regretfully and sighed. 

“Stanly, I did again,” he said to it, his shoulders slumped.

He turned his head to look again at the machine and put the picture down.  
“Yes sir, I did it again.”  
Stanford walked up to the machine and looked at it. There was enough anger in him to destroy it, but he knew that was not what he should do. He heard himself in his head ordering Mabel to stay and wait by the machine as he climbed up on its circular platform.

In his mind’s eye, he saw the man in the old picture. “I waited by this machine for thirty years,” he murmured as he turned his head directly to the bright blue light of the Teleporter.

“Ispo facto…”


	6. Gaia Or Bust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

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> 
> Sdf ixfnhg Pdgrqqd?

All in all, the lifestream isn’t a terrible place to be stuck for all eternity. 

It’s the furthest thing imaginable from lonely, right? The scenery was not unpleasant, although Aerith did sometimes get tired of seeing the same thing every day; a constant rush of the pale green souls of every person who had ever died, coursing like a river over an endless white plain. Well, there was that man, stuck in the same boat as her, but he hardly counted. The lifestream wouldn’t absorb either of their souls. It was enough to make her almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

Occasionally, she’d wade over to his side of the lifestream, which stuck out like a sore thumb from the rest. The souls of the lifestream either gave him a wide berth or clung to him and turned black. It was invariable; whenever she’d try to converse with him, she’d end up in a bad mood for the rest of the month. If she said, as sunny as possible, “Good morning!”, he would either ignore her or warn her of what would happen to her loved ones once he had risen from the dead. Likewise, if Aerith tried to ask him simple, friendly questions- ‘What’s your favorite color?’, ‘What sort of shampoo do you use?’, ‘What do you mean by ‘resurrection’?’, ‘How many girls have you ever kissed?’- she’d only get a vacant stare in response. 

It should come as no surprise Aerith was thrilled when the Pines family and Gideon came tumbling through the portal. From her vantage point in the lifestream, she got to watch as the otherworldly groups scrambled their way across their planet. First, a boy and a spirit- they were an odd group. Then what looked like siblings. Finally, an old man spawned out of nowhere, too. As the guardian of the planet, she figured it should worry her that strangers were appearing from nowhere, but it made her happy to see new people. 

Aerith wanted to help them so bad, she could’ve sworn it was putting worry lines in her youthful face. It probably would have if she weren’t dead.

It even seemed to impress Sephiroth- slightly. As they looked on from another plane of existence at the guests- the boy trying to control a demon, the two twins trying to make it on their own, and a confused and worried old man- she swore she heard him sigh, “Lord, what fools these mortals be,” in what may have been either his idea of a joke or his idea of whistling in the dark. 

-  
Traveling dimensions is a feeling you never get used to. Gideon certainly hadn’t. The closest thing it could be compared to is like being made into a liquid, a big shapeless Gideon blob, and then snapped back into shape somewhere entirely different. However, that was still pretty far outside Gideon’s frame of reference. Gideon had already had to cope with losing his body to Bill and spending most of the night as a spectral Gideon-ghost. In summary, Gideon was having a terrible night traveling in terrible company.

“Oh! Oh! Nibelheim! Boy, oh boy, do I love Nibelheim!”

Gideon moaned, coming to his senses. He felt like all the air had been knocked out of him. If it’s possible to get portal sickness, Gideon had it. “Nibel?” he started, before waves of nausea hit him.

Oblivious, Bill went on, “Yeah, Nibelheim! I love Nibelheim, and how. Everyone should love Nibelheim.” While his accomplice was fighting to regain control of his body, Bill was rambling. “I was down here- wow, must’ve been thirty years ago! And let me tell you, around these parts, I saw more farms and less people; I saw more wells and less water; I saw more grass and less trees- I saw more and I saw less than any place I’ve ever been.” He said this like it was of the utmost importance.

“Heh, that’s funny- spirits can vomit.’

Something in Gideon snapped. He pointed a transparent finger at Bill. “Let’s get moving! You promised me amulets- show me my amulets!”

Bill shrugged. “Sure, sure. It’s no skin off my teeth if you look like you crawled out of a dumpster, short-stack. It’s not like anyone can see you anyway.” He started laughing.

Gideon looked around him. They were standing in the middle of a grassy field at the foot of a high mountain range. Not too far from them was a town. Gideon’s vision cleared and he nodded towards it. “Is that ‘Nibelheim’? Is that where we’re going?”

Bill huffed. “You know what they say about all work and no play-”

Gideon crossed his arms and tried to look menacing, to which Bill started laughing again.

“You sure do a whole lot of threatening for a guy who doesn’t have a body, kid. You know…” Bill’s voice trailed off. He leaned in close to Gideon. “I am indebted to you, but don’t forget that-”

His voice dropped several octaves as he bellowed, “You have no power over me.”

Gideon looked away and wondered once more how much trouble he had gotten himself into.

-  
Stanford Pines woke up with a splitting headache and morning breath.  
He looked around the new world and was unimpressed. At first, he felt like he was sitting on a park bench surrounded by an ocean of gray. He felt a little better upon the realization he was merely sitting on a park bench surrounded by an ocean of people in gray. He shook his head at the realization that Dipper and Mabel were nowhere to be seen. People passed by all around, oblivious to the man in the wrinkled black suit. He leaned back on the bench and sighed.

“You sure did it now, huh, Mabel?” It was a rhetorical question, but he still got a response.

"Hello! Hello-o-ooo!" 

Stanford's eyes widened at shock at hearing an unfamiliar voice in his head. Out of the corner of his eye, if he didn't look too hard, he saw a pretty, youthful looking brunette waving at him. "What in the name of God are you?" he yelled. 

The girl closed her eye and rested her chin on her hand. "This is your conscience speaking!" she replied with a sense of accomplishment. 

He tilted his head. “Why is my conscience a pretty teenage girl?” he said, slowly. 

“Don’t talk to yourself,” Aerith scolded. “At least not out loud. People will think something’s wrong with you.” She thought for a while, and then added, “Aww, you think I’m pretty?”

“Yeah, sure. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. Now what do I do?” 

She hmm-d in concentration and twisted the end of her hair around her finger. “Well, it seems to me woken up in a strange world, while suddenly hearing voices in your head, right?” Stan nodded as she continued, “And now I’m sure you’re wondering what you do now, right?”

“I just said-”

“Well, Stan, it appears to me you’re in need of a friend.” The girl winked at him. “Is that it Stan? Do you need a friend?” She watched Stan try to stammer out a reply and laughed. “I can’t be much help to you, but I know some people who can.”

Stan sat up and nodded. The girl closed her eyes and thought. “All right, in the city you’re in now, there’s a bar called the Seventh Heaven. Ask around. Go into that bar, and find a woman named Tifa Lockhart working behind the counter.”

Stan attempted to make eye contact with a figment of his imagination. “Tifa Lockhart…” he mumbled.

“You’ll know her from her super long hair and her big-ah, smile,” she added with a blush. Stan twisted to pop his back and rose from the bench. As he began to walk nowhere in particular, the girl called after him, “Tell her Aerith sent you!”


	7. Flowers Blooming in the Church

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper and Mabel meet a deranged momma’s boy with silver hair, carrying an improbable sword, and dressed head-to toe in black leather, and the great thing about Final Fantasy VII is how that description could apply to a bunch of shit. Probably.

“I like this place,” Mabel said with a grin. “It’s got flowers!”

Dipper was nowhere near as enthused. “This place is creepy, Mabel. Look at this- the floor’s all rotted, the windows are filthy- looks like no one’s been here in ages,” he said to Mabel, trying to sound mature. “Let’s just find Bill and return home, okay?”

Mabel, who had been preoccupied with smelling the pale yellow flowers that were growing out of a hole in the floorboards, looked up sadly. “But Gideon could be anywhere! We need to figure out what kinda place we’re in first,” she said with finality. She stroked one of the petals on the flowers. Suddenly, she gasped. 

“What? Where?” yelped Dipper, looking around his surroundings wildly. 

Mabel burst into laughing. “WHAT? WHERE?” she said, mimicking Dipper’s panicked screaming. She picked one out of the dirt and placed it gently behind Dipper’s ear. She laughed some more, Dipper’s face turning red. “Hehehe; flowers!”

Dipper shook the petal out of his hair and pulled his journal out of his breast pocket. He glanced at the cover. He frowned. “Mabel, get serious. In this place, everything we encounter is something we’ve never seen before. And this book,”-here, he held up the journal to the light, sparse sunlight shining on the cover-“won’t be able to help us anymore.” 

Mabel bent down and picked up the flower that had fallen to the ground. She twirled it between her fingers before putting it back in Dipper’s hair. Grabbing her twin’s hand, she faced the door most likely to be an exit. 

“Well then!” she said, cheerfully. She turned her head, and the two met eyes. Mabel smiled. “We’d better get going, right?” She threw her arm around Dipper’s shoulder.

“You seem pretty cheery for someone that just found herself in the middle of an abandoned church on what’s most likely a whole new planet.” Dipper narrowed his eyes. “You seem inhumanly perky for someone who just forced her brother to come with her through a portal to said church.” He adjusted his hat. “Mabel, are you… plotting something?”

Mabel dismissed this with a combination of a hand wave and raspberry. “Pssh. Come on, Dipper. You know me- I’m always inhumanly perky! And nowhere near clever enough to plot something!” She started laughing. “Come on, Dipper! I wanna see what the rest of this world looks like!” 

Dipper knew his sister, and he knew something was up.

-

The people of this world were certainly not like anything Dipper and Mabel were used to, if the first person they met after leaving the church was any indication.

They met the man while wandering aimlessly through a junk heap that surrounded the church. It seemingly went on for miles. The bleak gray and brown of the landscape seemed to sober even Mabel up. “Dipper?” she asked, breaking an uncharacteristic silence. “Where do we go from here?” Dipper shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said, trying to mask how homesick and lost he felt. The two walked on through rows of rubbish. The sky was overcast, making everything in this new world look like an endless stretch of gray. 

“Dipper, what if there’s no one here, and no one can help us find Gideon?” asked Mabel again after a while has passed. No help had appeared. “Don’t freak out, Mabel. I’m pretty sure that sometime in the next few minutes we’ll find someone,” Dipper said with far more confidence than he felt. The church was now quite small on the horizon, and they hadn’t even seen any animals. Not the tiniest insect could be found amidst the piles of garbage surrounding them.

“Dipper, why would Gideon come to a place like this?” Mabel whispered.

“I don’t know why! Why did you choose to go after him, huh?” he said, harsher than he normally was with his twin. Both of them were hungry and tired, and frankly, quite irritable. Her lip trembled and she stopped walking to look down at her feet.

“I don’t know why! Maybe it has something to do with how you’re always dragging me along with your crazy adventures, and I figured you’d enjoy having fun and doing something nice for your sister!” 

“Doing something nice for other people? Pssshh. That’s so dumb,” said a voice behind them.

Both of them were surprised by the sound of an unfamiliar voice, and jumped out of their skin at the sound of it. The stranger approached swaggered up to them and put his hands on their shoulders. He stooped down.

“What are two kids doing in Midgar?” he asked with a somewhat-friendly voice. The children gawked. The stranger was dressed head to toe in black leather, with an odd looking sword strapped to his back- and that wasn’t even the oddest part of his appearance.

Dipper removed the man’s hand and backed away slowly. He was the kind to give people the benefit of the doubt, but he found it hard to do that with this person. Naturally, Mabel trusted him right away. 

She grinned widely and extended her hand. “Whoa, your hair is silver! My name’s Mabel!” 

The man grinned back and shook her hand. “I’m Loz.” He said his name like he was extremely proud of it. Mabel continued, “This is my brother, Dipper. We got lost and we really need to know how to get out of here. Can you help us?” She pouted a little.

Dipper was angered hearing Mabel tell Loz their names just like that, but he was as desperate to get out of this ‘Midgar’ as she was. He shook the man’s hand and pouted some too. “We haven’t eaten in forever.”

Loz thought about it. “Okay, but you’re my prisoners now.” 

Simultaneously, the twins choked out, “What?” 

The man went on, “Well, my brothers are always telling me I spend too much time playing and not enough time doing what really matters, like murder and arson and stuff. Boy, I’ll show them!” He rubbed his palms together and surveyed his ‘prisoners’ with a frown. “You two look unconvinced. Would you rather I leave you here to starve…?” 

The two shook their heads. “Awesome!” the man said with a grin. He shot them both a finger gun.

“What do you mean, murder and arson and stuff?” Dipper asked. Worry lines filled his face. Loz started to answer, but then Mabel started to talk.

“We accept!” she proclaimed. Dipper looked at his sister angrily.

“On one condition,” she continued. 

The man tilted his head. “I’m listening.”

Relief flooded Dipper, who started to think of ways to trick the man to freedom. 

“You have to promise to play Monopoly with me and not let me win!” Mabel said forcefully, pumping her fist in the air. Dipper died inside.

-

The silver-haired man clapped enthusiastically. “I accept!” he said, followed by a high-pitched giggle. “Neither of my brothers ever want to play with me.” 

Dipper took a step back, warily. “Mabel…” he started. 

She didn’t hear. “What kind of brothers wouldn’t want to play with you?” she asked him. The older man started walking, the two following close behind. “Oh, they’re real good guys. They’re just a little too serious. Even big brother-” He stopped and scratched his head. “I’ve got a motorcycle parked around here somewhere.” 

Dipper sighed, resigned to his fate. “So, um, Mister Loz,” he began. The man interrupted him with a wave of his hand. 

“Call me Loz. I hear Mister Loz, I look around for my father.” 

“Was your father named Loz, too?”

“How would I know?” he said, grunting. 

As he turned the corner of what had to have been the fiftieth junk heap that he had seen that day, Dipper sighed once more. “So, Loz. What are you planning on doing to us now that we’re your prisoners?” 

Just then, they found his motorcycle. It was a thing of beauty; intricate and powerful looking. He mounted the motorcycle, looking like he was born for no other purpose but to ride it. Both twins were in awe of this man, who seemed in that instant to be strength personified. 

Clumsily, he picked Mabel up by her armpits and placed her behind him, and did the same to Dipper. “Oh, I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought it this far out. Maybe we can make flower crowns and talk about our feelings?” he asked, hopefully. 

This sent Mabel over the moon. Her eyes widened and her braces glinting in the sunlight as she wrapped her arms around Loz’s leather-clad torso. “Have you ever made flower crowns?” she inquired, poking him in his side playfully. The man shook his head dolefully. “Well then, we need to get started right away!” Mabel said, as Dipper wrapped his arms around her torso. 

“Easy there Mabel; one more question, please,” Dipper pleaded to the strange man. “Okay, prisoners, but this is your last one, so make it count.” Dipper felt his mouth form the words “Where are we?” but he distantly heard Mabel say, “You don’t sound like an old person! Why’s your hair so silver?”

Loz licked his lips as he put his key in the ignition. “Runs in the family, you know?”

Dipper tightened his grip on Mabel’s screaming-yellow sweater. “Mabel, what in the world?”

Mabel groaned. “Sorry Dipper, but I needed to know!”

The engine of the motorcycle started, and the conversation died as the trio sped off to places unknown stylishly.


	8. Velut Luna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this installment of Inside Jokes Are Only Funny Inside the Original Audience, Stanford meets Tifa Lockhart and we find out whether or not Mabel’s prophesied monopoly game with Loz becomes real. Isn’t the internet something?

The bartenders of Edge had long since grown used to drunken antics and general stupidity. In fact, it was this sort of jaded outlook on life that was the marl of a good bartender. Tifa Lockhart was the only one that wasn’t like this. To her, a knack for hurting people will only get you so far, perhaps due to having one of her own.

A man with impossibly red hair went sailing through the bar's doorway after a well-placed kick from the bartender. He landed against the brick wall of the alley outside the Seventh Heaven with a soft thud.  
She appeared in the doorway. 'Reno, touch my breasts again, and you will die." 

Reno hastily sat up and dusted his wrinkled black suit off. He smiled and slurred back, 'Ohcomeon Teeeeef-" hiccup-"it's my birrrrrrthdayyyy."

She tossed her long, brown hair over her shoulder. "It was your birthday last week." The door to the bar slammed shut, and the man groaned and lay back down.

Stanford looked at the bar, then at the redhead laying unconscious in the alleyway, and then back at the door. He walked up to Reno and stooped over. 

“Sir-” Stan coughed back a laugh at hearing himself call the man a ‘sir’- “Is this the Seventh Heaven?”

The man groaned, tried to sit up, and groaned some more. He laid back down. “Nope, mate. This is the sixth circle of hell.”

Stan shrugged and stepped lightly over Reno’s body on his way to the bar door. A thought popped into his head. “Hey, Aerith,” he remarked to the lady in the pink dress. “I’m not from this planet. Why do you all speak English?”

Aerith shrugged. “I’m not speaking English. I’m speaking Midgar.”

Stan rolled his eyes. “Mmmhmm. Right. And it just remarkably happens, by some stroke of luck, to sound exactly like English.”

“Or maybe English sounds like Midgar,” Aerith said with a pout. “You don’t know. Maybe some guy from our world somehow landed in your world, and he was so influential, people copied his speaking style.” She twisted the end of her braid. Cracking her knuckles, she added, “That’s not all that likely, though. I mean, Midgar is a pretty young language. It sprung up like that after a man named-”

“Let’s finish this stupid conversation later.” Stanford opened the bar door and stepped in. He inhaled deeply. 

“Yep, that’s alcohol,” he remarked as his vision adjusted to the dimly lit inside. He scanned the bar looking for someone that matched Tifa’s description. As he looked around, he saw that the red headed man had somehow snuck his way back in and was currently seated and talking to a well-muscled blonde in a similar suit. “I guess it’s universal. Those kind just don’t give up, huh?” he sighed to himself.

“I’ll say,” a woman’s voice from behind him remarked.

Reno looked up from his accomplice at something behind Stan. He stood in open-mouthed horror. The lady he was with giggled into her shot glass as he backed out of the bar hurriedly.

Stanford turned to find himself facing a woman as tall as he was. She had long, brown hair and a smirk. Suddenly, Stan was grateful he fell asleep that night in his own business suit. He polished his glasses and smiled at her.

The woman wiped her hands on a long black skirt and tossed her hair behind her shoulder. She widened her reddish-brown eyes and looked Stanford in his face. “Welcome to the Seventh Heaven. I’m the barmaid who, uh, is not currently behind the bar. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a new face. Can I help you?” she asked pleasantly.

Stan looked around nervously, looking to see if there may have been anyone else Aerith meant by bartenders with long, brown hair and found none. He cleared his throat. 

“Are you Tifa? Tifa Lockhart?” he asked, diverting his sight from her eyes to a pink ribbon she wore tied around her arm. The woman mumbled something that sounded like a yes. 

“This is a long story, but your friend, Aerith, she sort of told me to find you and-”

Stan’s speech was cut short by Tifa forcing his chin up. Their eyes locked. 

“What did you say about Aerith?” the woman asked, in a slow, measured tone of voice.

Stan shook her hands off of his chin. He grunted and dropped his gaze. “Pour me a glass of your finest, most expired apple cider. I’m talking as old as I am. This is a long story.”

-

Kadaj clenched his fists in anger and huffed angrily. Yazoo, used to this by now, didn’t even look up from his newspaper. “Morning, Kadaj. How’d you sleep?” he asked, bored. 

Kadaj slammed his fist on their breakfast table. He bellowed in reply, “How did I sleep? How did I sleep? No news of mother in months, and you’re worried about my sleep?” 

Yazoo, unbothered, licked his finger and turned the page of his paper. “Everyone knows sleep is the most important thing you can do to keep your mind healthy…” He looked up and calmly smiled at his brother, who returned it with a death glare. “And stable,” he muttered under his breath.

Kadaj’s rage was loud enough to be heard from outside their tent. Loz sighed. “My brothers are fighting again,” he said. He looked so dejected, even Dipper momentarily felt sorry for him. It passed, however, when he remembered his surroundings. 

“So, Loz. Where are we again?” Dipper asked, keeping his voice flat.

The silver haired man tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t I tell you not to ask any more questions?” he said angrily. 

Mabel grabbed onto Dipper’s arm and looked the silver-headed man right in the face.”That wasn’t a question- his voice didn’t go up at the end!” Mabel said in her twin’s defense. The twins high-fived, wearing silly grins on both of their faces. 

Loz looked away and nodded. “Well, I can’t argue with that! This place is called Cosmo Canyon. It’s where we're based, for now.” He shrugged. “You’re a long way from Midgar, you know that?” Both children nodded, having vivid flashbacks of Loz riding his stunning motorcycle through water, somehow. Mabel frowned. “My sweater got soaked.” Dipper added, “I thought we were dead.” Loz nodded proudly. Both of them looked around.

Cosmo Canyon was, as the name suggests, a large canyon. Loz parked his bike outside of a large tent about halfway down its rocky red cliffs. As the saying goes, it was hot enough to fry an egg outside. “So, you live here?” Mabel asked as Loz lifted the flap of the tent to let them in. 

“Yeah- my brothers and I. Speaking of them…” Loz grinned devilishly. “Hey, Kadaj, Yaz! Come here, I got a surprise!” Dipper and Mabel looked nervously at each other.

Two tall men with silver hair, also both wearing strange black leather clothing, looked up from a table in the back of the tent. They looked alike in an odd way. The most obvious difference between the three was the length of their silver hair- Loz had short hair and sideburns, one of them had hair down to his knees and the other wore it to his shoulders. The one with the long hair remarked, “Is it the other half of your brain?” as he stood. The other added, “Good going, brother!”

“Nope, Yaz- but this is better.” He grinned as he nudged Dipper and Mabel out from behind him into the open. He stooped down between them and wrapped his arms around their shoulders. “Ta-da! Look, brothers! I succeeded!”

The one with the shoulder length hair rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “So, while Yaz and I have been working nonstop looking for Mother, you’ve been off playing Jenga with a group of nine year olds?” 

The twins frowned. 

“We’re not nine-we’re twelve!” Dipper shouted.

“We haven’t even gotten to play Yahtzee yet, much less Jenga!” added Mabel.

Loz crossed his arms. “They’re my prisoners. I captured them myself. Doesn’t that mean something?” 

Yazoo shook his head.

Mabel crossed her arms and stood on her tiptoes. With her most determined look on her face, something that was bordered on scary (for Mabel), she started, “Listen, losers! I’ve just met you, and I can already tell that you two are terrible brothers! Loz here is the best hostage-keeper I’ve ever had! And even if he wasn’t, you’re his brothers! Isn’t it your duty, as his brother to love and support him, no matter what?” She grabbed Loz’s hand. “Look at how excited he was to show off his kidnappees to you. This poor boy cares about your approval!”

The other one- Kadaj, apparently- frowned. “Well, that's an impressive thing for a ten year-old to say.” He turned to Yazoo. “Do you want to take this one?”

Yazoo cracked his knuckles. “That poor boy is carrying with him a Velvet Nightmare model gun-sword,” he began in a bored voice. "It’s a gun! It’s a sword! Our small group of brothers exists for one purpose, and we deliver destruction and despair to those that distract us from it. We’re far too important- well, Kadaj and I are, anyway- far too important to sit around and entertain unimportant children.” Closing his eyes, he finished, “You two are nothing more than a roadblock in our quest to find Mother,” in a calm, but arrogant voice.

The room was dead quiet, except for the occasional sob from Loz. Dipper elbowed him. “Sorry,” he sniffled. 

Breaking the silence, Mabel asked awkwardly, “Well, do we at least get to stay for dinner?”

-

“Okay, old man. You’ve had your cider. Now, start talking.”

Stan and Tifa sat down across from each other. Tifa hadn’t taken her eyes off Stan since he mentioned the name of the woman in his mind to her. Stan had hoped the drink would take the edge off her red-eyed stare, but it hadn’t.

They were sitting on a couch in Tifa’s home, built around the Seventh Heaven. There was something about ugly patterned couches that made people think you were comfortable laying and spilling the contents of your soul on them. Stan wasn’t that kind of person.

He looked around her living room for something that might get her mind off of him long enough for him to invent a believable lie about where he came from. He found what he was looking for in a picture on a small table next to the couch.

“Who’s this with you in the picture?” he asked her awkwardly. She picked the picture up and took it out of its simple frame. She looked at the picture oddly for a while before handing it to Stan. Now, he saw that it was a picture of her and a blond man with sad eyes and a questionable haircut.

Aerith appeared, somewhat, in Stan’s mind. As Stan looked at the picture, she excitedly said, “That’s Cloud Strife. He was my boyfriend, before I died and all.”

Tifa took the picture from Stan and put it back in its frame. “His name’s Cloud. He’s my boyfriend,” she said to Stan, quietly.

“Boyfriend? Her? Her boyfriend?” Aerith shrieked. “I see how it is- as soon as I die, they just forget all about me! Yep! That’s it!” Aerith shook her head and clenched her fists. Disdainfully, she added “Just dump my body in the lisfestream and run off together!”

This caused Stan to have an awful headache. He massaged his temples and groaned as Aerith went on about the indignity of dying.

Tifa tilted her head and looked at him. “Are you okay? Do you need something?”

“No, no, I’m fine. It’s just-my conscience is killing me.” He shrugged and tapped his forehead. Aerith blessedly took a hint and disappeared. Tifa shrugged back nonchalantly.

“So, about Aerith…” she begun. Stan grunted and laid back on the couch.

“She’s a brunette, yeah? Wears a pink dress and red half-jacket. Little button nose. Small bust, but big hips.” 

Tifa tapped her fingers impatiently on the arm of her chair. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. How do you know about her?” Stanford looked her in the eyes. “If I told you, you’d never believe me,” he started, desperately trying to invent a lie. “Try.” 

“Well, you see…” Stan fixed his gaze to her ceiling. “I’m from another world. I got here from a teleporter I built myself. My niece and nephew came with me, but now I’ve got no idea where they are. Oh, and your friend? She just literally popped in my head and told me to find you. That’s my story.”

Tifa rested her head in her fingers. 

Stan sat up. “I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“No, no. I have no choice but to believe you- there’s no way you could’ve met Aerith before she…” Her eyes closed. “But your description was spot-on. There’s nothing I can do but believe you.”

“Good, because Stanford Pines doesn’t lie,” Stan lied.

-  
Dinner turned out to be a fairly simple stew with some type of meat in it, cooked by Yazoo. Initially, Dipper and Mabel felt somewhat slighted by the small portion they were served. When they saw that Yazoo had his long, beautiful hair tied back with a ridiculous bandanna, they laughed their way to another helping. Despite being so plain, it was filling, and the twins ate both bowls quickly.  
“A wise man once said, ‘Hunger is the best spice.’” was all Yazoo would respond with when Mabel asked for the recipe.

Of course, the real focus of dinner was not on the food, but on those eating it. Dipper and Mabel were equal parts frightened and fascinated by the three brothers that they had found themselves mixed up with. The silver-haired men were very interested in their story, mostly recounted by Mabel, even if parts seemed too far-fetched to be true.

Upon hearing that Dipper and Mabel were from another planet, none of them seemed to disbelieve it. In fact, they seemed somewhat happy when they heard it.

“Another world? Like Mother?” Kadaj asked them levelly. Dipper and Mabel looked at each other.

“Mother? Who’s your mother?” Dipper asked.

The three men exchanged odd looks. Yazoo, who appeared to be the sanest of the three, cleared his throat. “Our mother is a wise and powerful deity who came to this world from somewhere else, long time ago.” 

Dipper and Mabel looked at each other uneasily. “Well, I guess, sort of like that…” Dipper ventured. “Minus the wise, powerful deity thing, obviously.”

Kadaj, seated between the two other silver-haired men, looked at Dipper and chuckled. “Obviously. So, why are you here now?”

Mabel folded her hands in her lap and looked away. “An old enemy of ours, a little boy named Gideon, came here first. We’ve got no idea where he is, and we’re trying to figure out why he’s here ourselves,” she confessed.

All three men nodded vigorously. “Hatred is the purest motivator,” Yazoo remarked.

Dipper weakly raised his hand in protest. “I wouldn’t call it hatred-“

“So, where is your mother?” Mabel interrupted.

Once again, the three silver-haired men exchanged puzzled glances. This time, Loz was the one to speak. “We have no idea,” he said with a shrug. “We’ve been looking for her forever.”

“Well, gee. It seems like you could use help,” Mabel said, raising her eyebrows coyly. She sat up as straight as she could and said, “Why don’t you let us help you look for your mother, and in return, you help us look for Gideon?”

Kadaj and Yazoo both laughed at this. Loz, however, rubbed his hands together and grinned. “Well,” he started, looking at his brothers, “why not?”

Yazoo’s laughter became a frown. He furrowed his brow and looked at Loz like he was being ridiculous. “Because, Loz. They’re twelve.”

“Well, that shouldn’t matter! If they’re old enough to travel through space, they’re old enough to go looking for Mother,” Loz said in defense of the twins. He reached across the circular dinner table to flick Mabel on the ear. “See? They’re tough as rock.”

“Or at least as tough as whatever your head’s made out of,” Kadaj added darkly.

Yazoo shook his head, his silver hair falling into his eyes. “They might be useful. I don’t know how, but they might.”

“Is that a yes?” Dipper asked, not entirely happy with agreeing to help them, but terrified of the alternative. He looked uneasily at the evil looking gun-swords strapped to Loz’s and Yazoo’s backs.

“It’s a don’t-mess-up-and-we’ll see.”

Mabel pumped her fist in the air. “Don’t worry! The Pines twins never mess up!” She high-fived Loz and smiled widely.

Dipper began realizing that there was a lot in his twelve year old life to regret not doing.


	9. Nothing's Carved In Stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens in Rocket Town stays in Rocket Town- except for Stan and a particular biplane.

“I used to have a plane like this before, but smaller. We called her the Tiny Bronco. She was destroyed maliciously. Now, we have this beauty. I named her ‘The Tiny Bronco Flies Again,” in my old gal’s honor, or Tiny Bronco, for short.” 

Stan stifled a yawn. He thought Tifa was looking pretty bored as well. 

 

“Of course, to me, that kinda defeats the purpose of naming something in tribute to something else, but it happens.”  
Stanford tapped Tifa on the shoulder. She shook her head and smiled. 

“Stan, this is Cid Highwind, an old friend,” she said of their host. He was a brawny blond in his thirties that had smoked his way through three cigarettes since Stan and Tifa arrived in his aircraft hangar. It says a lot about him, that Stan learned the name of Cid’s prized airship before Cid’s own.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Any friend of Tifa is a friend of mine!” Cid said, his cigarette bobbing up and down with his words. He cracked his knuckles and shook Stan’s hand. “So, what’s brought you to Rocket Town today?” 

Tifa folded her arms and looked at Stan, unsure of how to begin. “Well, he says he’s looking for his niece and nephew…” she started hesitantly.

Cid’s cigarette dropped out of his mouth. He swore loudly as he pulled another out of the breast pocket of his jacket. “You wanna get me involved in looking for some kids?” he said once it had been lit. Stan withdrew his hand.

Tifa explained Stan’s story to Cid a lot more charitably than Stan could have. Cid listened as he puffed on his cigarette. When she was finished, he whistled and scratched his head.

“Another world, huh?” He took a long drag. “And you’re hearing our Aerith’s voice in your head?” He shrugged. “I believe it. I mean, you can’t make this up.”

“We were hoping you could take us around in one of your airships,” Tifa said. She smiled widely. “We’d cover more ground that way…”

Cid spat has cigarette onto the ground and extinguished it with his boot.

“Sure, sure. I don’t mind. I’ve been itching to get flying again.” He leaned close to Stan and elbowed him. “That wife of mine, she’s trying to clip my wings,” he said with a laugh, inadvertently blowing smoke all over Stan’s face.

Stan coughed and nodded. “Boy, I know how that is, buddy,” he replied, wiping tears from his eyes.

Cid and Tifa turned from Stan to talk to each other. Stan lost himself in the array of aircraft Cid had just been showing them. The hangar was full of them; they were massive things, spotless metal gleaming with fresh paint jobs. Stan appraised them. Being an old con, he knew a lot about the worth of things. His eyes were drawn to the Tiny Bronco. Cid had called it an ‘airship’, and that was an accurate name. Looking at the complex parts of the Tiny Bronco, intricate and well fitted, Stan almost felt moved.

He considered himself a step above petty theft. But looking at the airship, he felt his old stealing urges rise again. “If stealing this thing is wrong, give me a sign,” Stan mumbled to himself.

Just then, Cid turned back towards Stan. He grinned wide.

“Good news, pal. I’ve got time to refuel, then I’m gonna check the engine, and we can be out of here and looking for your kids as soon as noon tomorrow.” He wiped his hands on his khaki pants and pulled out another cigarette.

Stan’s mouth dropped. “Tomorrow? But- they’re twelve years old. They could be anywhere. They haven’t eaten. For god’s sake, they’re alone.”

“I’m sorry man, but I have to refuel. And the engine here’s been making some noises I’m not too fond of.” He patted the side of the Tiny Bronco affectionately. “There’s just nothing that I can do about it.” Cid shrugged, and turned back to Tifa. The two of them left the hangar together, still talking.

“I bet there’s something I can do about it, blondie,” Stan muttered to himself.

He looked once more at the Tiny Bronco. The more Stan saw of it, the more he liked it. The airship was about the size of a large trailer, with massive wings that blocked out the hangar’s harsh industrial lights. Stan stood in their shadows and looked squarely at the cockpit.

He stroked the stubble on his chin as he tried to think of a plan, promising himself it would not be a petty theft. "I sure hope I'm not growing a conscience," he muttered to himself. Aerith was silent.  
-  
The sun was setting on Cosmo Canyon, and everything was a painful shade of red.

Dipper faced the horizon and squinted, trying to stand up straight and keep his tired arms extended by his side. Kadaj, the apparent head of the silver-haired men, was examining his arms and trying to determine if they had any muscle on them. Loz and Mabel were sitting on the ground weaving friendship bracelets and giggling about something. Dipper pressed his lips together and sighed. 

“I’m done,” Kadaj said to Dipper, shaking his head and frowning. Dipper relaxed.

“So, how am I, sir?”

“Underdeveloped. And sweaty.”

“So, what now?” Dipper asked.

Kadaj yelled over to Yazoo, who was meditating silently with his legs crossed atop a black metal briefcase. He jumped to his feet and picked up the case. Kadaj popped his neck and called Mabel over.

Yazoo opened the case. “This,” he began, pulling from it a jade green sphere about the size of his palm, “is materia.” He looked at Kadaj. “They’re both on defense, yeah?” Kadaj nodded.  
He pulled out another green sphere and pressed one into each twin’s palm.

Holding the material was just as painful and confusing as going through the teleporter. The two started hearing a thousand different voices in their heads, all saying different things. Coupled with the heat of their desert surroundings and the stress they were under, it was an immense credit to both that they did not faint, yell in pain, nor drop the materia. 

Yaz stooped in front of Dipper. “You have the Barrier materia,” he informed him as he pulled out Dipper’s arm. “It’s activated like this.”

Dipper gritted his teeth in pain as Yazoo took the material from his hand and pressed it into Dipper’s arm. It sank below the skin, and the sound of the voices intensified. Dipper struggled not to show any weakness, biting his tongue to keep from screaming.

The noise stopped just short of being unbearable, fading to a dull buzz. Listening closely, Dipper heard that the voices were all saying in unison, ‘Barrier.’ Almost instinctively, Dipper thought back, ‘Barrier.’   
He opened his eyes to find himself encased in a green dome of energy. Yazoo drew his gunsword and fired a round at it. The barrier’s glow flickered, but it did not give way. Satisfied that the barrier worked, Yazoo turned to Mabel.

“This is cure materia,” he said to Mabel. The dome around Dipper gave way as he saw him force the green sphere into his sister’s arm. Mabel did not so much as wince as the thing entered her skin with a faint glow. In horror, Dipper watched as Yazoo take his sword and runs Mabel’s fingers over its blade. Dipper cried out in anger, and found himself being held back by Loz as he saw a drop blood coming from Mabel’s finger. 

Then, Mabel grinned widely as green light pulsed around her arm and shot up to her hand. She held it in front of Dipper’s face excitedly. “Look, Dipper! Look what I can do now!” She squealed and hugged Dipper tight.

“We should get on to Mount Nibel pretty soon,” Yazoo remarked to Kadaj. He looked at Loz and tossed his long silver hair over his shoulder. “They’re riding with you.” He and Kadaj walked back to the tent, talking.  
Dipper looked long and hard at Mabel’s hand, and then sighed loudly at seeing a bright pink friendship bracelet tied to it.  
-  
The Tiny Bronco flew as divinely as it looked. The aircraft was cruising slowly, occasionally making gentle turns, in the air above Rocket Town as its pilot explained how safe an airship like the Tiny Bronco was to Stan.

“I’ve been flying for most of my life, bud, and I’ll tell you; I’m still alive and I haven’t died yet,” Cid said, sagely. His eyes focused fondly on the sky in front of him. “I’m telling you, she’s safe. She’s good to me because she loves me.”

Stan bit back a laugh. “Thank you again for putting my mind at ease, captain,” he said, putting his plan into motion.

Cid nodded absentmindedly and pointed to unlit lights by the plane’s controls. “All right, so this light indicates low oil, this one’s low fuel, and this one’s for abnormal engine temperature.” Cid straightened up and smiled. “Heh, I’m a captain now?”

“Yeah, Captain Highwind. Doesn’t that sound majestic?” Stan said, trying to sound sincere. Cid stroked his chin and nodded with a wide grin. Stan turned his chair slightly closer to Cid. “I’m going to level with you. I’m an old man. One foot in the grave. And I just feel so much safer looking for niece and nephew now that I don’t have to worry about being flown around in something that could fall out of the sky,” Stanford Pines, the greatest con man in Oregon, said with a tight frown. Laying on the melodrama thick, he added, “You’ve spared me from a heart attack, that’s what you’ve done.” 

“Don’t worry about it. I can’t imagine letting a friend of Tifa and Aerith’s go and worry, not when I can do something about it. Besides, you said you’d pay me everything you could. How can I say no to that?” The blond pilot popped his shoulders. Stan watched how Cid steered intently, committing every slight movement to memory. “We really have to be landing in a bit, though. I’ve still got to check the engine and all.”

Stan nodded and relaxed into the co-pilot’s seat, and ran an appraising eye around the spotless white cockpit. “This is a nice thing. State-of-the-art. You make it yourself?”

“That’s right, built her myself.” Cid pulled at the steering and the plane descended gently. Stan observed his technique closely.

“You’d be upset if anything happened to this plane?” 

“Oi! If someone hurts the Tiny Bronco Flies Again, well, I’m gonna hurt them!” Cid snickered. “You see, I’m not just Cid Highwind, expert pilot and ladies’ man. I’m Cid Highwind, expert spearman and ladies’ man!”

“Duly noted,” Stan mumbled to himself. 

The Tiny Bronco touched down on a flat bit of land behind Cid’s house. Stan was elated that that the airship did not use an airstrip. The windows rattled as Cid lowered the craft down. Tifa came running up to greet them. She waved to them as the plane came to a complete stop. Cid waved back to her and then turned back to Stan. 

Pointing out a switch to him, he said, “And this here I the engine’s power switch.” He flicked it off, and sure enough, the engine sputtered to a stop. “If I flipped it on again, it’d start the engine back up.” Cid rubbed his palms together. “And that’s all there is to flying a beauty like the Tin Bronco!”

Stan extended his hand for Cid to shake. Both men stood. “I thank you, captain. You’re a good man.” Cid opened the door to the outside and turned to look at Stan with a grin.

“Do you think so?”

Stan mimicked Cid’s grin sardonically. “Sure!” 

He kicked Cid out of the cockpit and down several feet below. 

Tifa came rushing up to Cid. He had a small scrape on his forehead and a busted lip. She tried to help him sit up, and looked angrily up at the cockpit to Stan, who was laughing.

“Why did you do this?” she yelled to him. Cid pointed to him and narrowed his eyes in rage. “You said you’d pay me all you had!”

Stan wiped away a tear of amusement. “I don’t have any money from this hellhole! I couldn’t pay you a dime, even if I wanted to!” He slammed the cockpit door shut in their angry and confused faces. Whistling, he then locked it and took a seat in the pilot’s chair. 

Stan flicked the engine switch on. The Tiny Bronco, now under Stan’s control, roared to life. He recalled how Cid rose the pane up and tried to mimic his actions as best as possible. “You’ve done it now, Stanford,” he sighed as he left Cid, Tifa, and Rocket Town behind him. “There ain’t no getting off of this plane I’m on now.”


	10. Statu Variabilis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nanowrimo ate my life. In other news, the adventure of the world’s most unlikely traveling companions continues, and things happen. How quirky!

Kadaj left Cosmo Canyon first. After his short talk with Yazoo, he climbed on his black motorcycle and flew off without a word to the twins.

Shortly after, Yazoo left. He was delayed slightly after discovering Mabel had covered his materia case with stickers. After breaking several nails trying to peel them off and resorting to using the tip of his sword to remove the sticky residue, he threw the case on the back of his own black motorcycle and rode off, disappearing down the canyon's dusty red trail.  
Loz looked at his young passengers. "Are you all ready to leave?" he asked as he helped them get situated on the back of the bike.

Dipper checked and double-checked his blue vest to make sure the journal was ticked inside securely. Satisfied, he gave Loz a thumbs-up.

Loz shot Dipper one back. "Mabel? You okay back there?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at Mabel. She nodded, grinning with excitement  
.  
"All right, then. Time's a'wasting!" he declared, turning back around and starting the engine. The heavy smell of thick smoke assaulted them as the motorcycle roared to life.

Twelve year olds are twelve year olds, even when lost in an unfamiliar world and confused about what to do next. The twins had their reservations about the motorcycle and its rider- he was making vrooming noises, for god's sake- but the prospect of riding on the back of it was excitement of the highest kind.

And why wouldn't it? The high, red cliffs of Cosmo Canyon were stunning to look at, even when lit only by Loz's headlights. As the sky darkened, the canyon's other namesake became apparent. Stars rose in the sky, so bright they almost outshone each other.

Dipper looked at the stars with a sinking feeling. "Look at that band of light up there, Mabel," he yelled over the engine noise. Both of them looked up at the sky and saw a milky band of light, not unlike the Milky Way as seen from Earth but much wider and more bright. Mabel looked at her brother, confused.

"Well, that tears it. That's not our galaxy, we aren't on Earth," Dipper said. He had the feeling Mabel still didn’t understand.

Mabel turned her head, the wind throwing her brown hair into Dipper's eyes. She opened her mouth and caught the freezing night air in her cheeks. "Isn't this great?" she yelled to Dipper, loud even over the noise of the motorcycle. She turned back around to look at him and laughed at him struggling to keep his baseball cap on.

"Yeah, this is great!" Dipper yelled to his sister, understanding the need to change the subject. "I'm not even feeling motion sick like last time."

"So, you're not going to throw up again?" Loz asked him. 

Dipper shook his head gleefully. He took his hat off and raised it high in the air, then quickly put it back on as the wind almost blew it out of his hand.

Just then, something came out of nowhere and slammed itself against the back of the bike.

Loz skidded to halt. The bike stopped a lot sharper than it should have, and the twins found themselves thrown on their heads. Loz fought to regain control of the machine, cutting power to the engine. All three were dumped onto the ground.

Mabel rubbed her head, her eyes wide in shock. “What was that? Was it something bad?”

“It could be something very, very bad,” Loz admitted, as he pulled himself to his feet. “But I think we’ll be alright.” He reached out a hand to Mabel and helped her up. He stooped in front of Dipper. “Dipper?” he said, poking him in the ribs.

Dipper shook his head and tried to open his eyes. There was a large cut on his cheek, and his arms and knees were covered in cuts and scrapes. “Yes, sir?”

“You can throw up now."

“Thank you, sir.” Dipper turned his head and laid back against the motorcycle.

The thought of materia floated into Mabel’s head. She moved next to Dipper and laid her hands on his chest. Closing her eyes, she yelled, “Cure!”

Green sparks flew down her arm and into Dipper’s body. His eyes shot open and he sat up. His face twitched slightly, suddenly full of energy. 

Loz whistled. He offered his hand to Dipper, who shook his head and stood up alone. “Materia’s amazing stuff, isn’t it?” Dipper remarked, looking down at his hands, suddenly free of the wounds that had been covering them just moments ago.

“It sure is,” Loz agreed. He turned to Mabel. “You don’t need to say the stuff out loud, you know?”

Mabel grinned and shrugged. “I know. It’s just cooler, you know?” She winked and shot both Dipper and Loz with a finger gun.

From somewhere close by, the sound of a low growl ended their good mood. The three went quiet. After a little while, the noise of the growling came again, this time closer.

“That’s what I thought,” Loz said as he licked his lips and drew his gunblade cautiously. He walked a few paces forward. “Nibel wolves.”

Neither of the twins had to ask what a Nibel wolf was- they saw a whole pack of them soon enough.  
-  
“Wall!” Dipper thought, as a large gray thing that resembled a wolf in the same way as a sheet of paper resembled a tree lunged at him. Responding to his thoughts, a wall of protective energy burst around him, and the Nibel wolf bounced harmlessly off it.

Mabel rushed into the wall and stood behind him. The dome flickered. Dipper realized it was straining to keep the wolves back. As more wolves threw themselves at it, he found it harder to maintain the concentration needed to keep the wall going. Frantically, Mabel clasped her hands to Dipper's temples.

"Cure!" Mabel shouted. Energy ran down her fingertips and into Dipper's mind.

His head much clearer, Dipper summoned the wall again. Another Nibel wolf threw itself at the dome, and yapped in pain when its purple body hit the shield. The wolves surrounding the twins cleared, and they saw Loz standing in the center of a horde of wolves. 

Whether by materia or something else, Loz's right hand was encased in electricity. He slugged his way through the wolves, towards the motorcycle and the twins.

Dipper looked at Mabel. "Is that the same guy you made friendship bracelets with?" Mabel shook her head in confusion.

Loz reached the barrier of the dome and waved to them. "How are you doing that?" Dipper yelled to him in near-awe. Loz raised his arm on pointed to some kind of mechanical gauntlet on it.

"Do you like her? I call her the dual hound," Loz proclaimed, not looking away from the twins as one of the last wolves sprung on him.

Dipper relaxed. The magical shield around them flickered and vanished. Mabel clung to his arm as they watched their companion beat the strange monster unconscious.

When the rest of the wolves retreated, Loz muttered, "That was worth at least 800 Gil." He turned to the twins. "Are you both okay?"

Dipper and Mabel nodded. "We're fine, " they answered in unison.

Loz shrugged. It was hard to see him just by moonlight. "All right, then. Let's mosey."

Without warning, a large wolf came flying at Loz, its mouth open. Loz spun and drew his gunsword at incredible speed, his shots landing straight in its stomach.

The twins covered their ears and watched as the figure of the wolf fell to the ground.

"All right, now are you okay?" Loz asked as he sheathed his gunsword. Without waiting for a reply from either of them, he shooed the Pines twins toward the bike. Dipper and Mabel climbed in quickly, and without saying anything, the three rode off.

-  
Stan was having a terrible morning as well. Fearful that Tifa and her bodybuilder friend were in hot pursuit, he revised to sleep. He was only able to relax somewhat after he cleared a mountain range and Rocket Town was far, far behind him, but even then, he couldn't bring himself to dock and rest.

While this was advantageous in that it pit distance between him and his pursuers, it was disadvantageous in that he found his eyes closing.

The Tiny Bronco lost altitude and shook, jolting Stan awake. He pulled it back up and tried to keep himself from dozing off again. Given he was already flying low in his search for Dipper and Mabel, he couldn't afford another drop. 

The Tiny Bronco sailed over the mountains and past a small village. Anyone else would have found the sunrise on the snow-covered hilltops, painting the pristine peaks in shades of pinks and oranges, something rapturous. Stan was not anyone else. The most it did was motivate him to find a flat piece of land somewhere and dock on it to rest.

After a few more minutes, he found himself above a grassy plain that would be an ideal place to stop for a rest. 

Just one more minute, Stan. One more minute, and then you can dock, he repeated to himself until it almost became a manta. His eyes dropped closed, and the airship shook again. 

Stan pulled the ship up and prepared to dock when he saw the silhouettes of people against the ground below. His brain fired adrenaline through his body as though he were awake. He surveyed the scene below.

As he got nearer to them, he saw that one of them was a brown-haired child wearing a bright yellow sweater and another was a brown-haired child wearing a red shirt. In other words, his niece and nephew.

Stan pulled the Tiny Bronco down for a landing quickly, then cut power to the engine. On the ground, he rushed over to the door in the ship's passenger's compartment, lowered it, and looked out.

Mabel was taking a tall, strangely dressed man's arm in her hand. They apparently had not noticed the airship that had landed next to them. Stan's heart pounded. 

He near-jumped out of the airship and ran into the group, shouting, "Don't do it, Mabel! You're too young!" He stooped over to catch his breath. "Too... Young..." he panted.

Dipper and Mabel ran over to him. They hugged him tight. "You're here!" Mabel said, overjoyed.

Stan shook himself free and laughed. "You bet I'm here, kids." He adjusted his fez. "Now, I'm sure you've got a billion questions, but-"

"What am I too young to do?" Mabel asked him.

Stan looked around uncomfortably. "You mean, like, right now, or just in general?" The silver-haired men approached them cautiously.

Mabel was about to say something in reply when Loz pushed his way forward. "Who's this?" he asked, pointing to Stan. 

Stan puffed out his chest and offered Loz his hand. Loz shook it awkwardly. Clearing his throat, Stan announced in the fake-friendly voice he only used with customers, "I'm they're great-uncle, the legendary Mister Mystery, Stanford Pines!" 

"Where'd you get the airship?" Yazoo asked, tilting his head slightly towards the Tiny Bronco.

"I forcefully borrowed it," Stan replied, his nice voice cracking.

"I second Mabel's question. What did you think I was doing?" Kadaj inquired with narrow eyes.

"Whatever it was probably isn't half as bad as what was actually happening," Stan snapped. "So, who are you?"

The silver-haired men introduced themselves and explained why Dipper and Mabel were traveling with them. 

When their story was done, Stan stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Your mother, huh? What does she look like?"

The three looked at each other uneasily.

"Well, we've never met her," Yazoo began.

Kadaj pushed his way forward. "But she has to be the most beautiful woman to ever exist!" 

Stan raised his eyebrows. "Well, good thing you know the important things." In his nice voice again, he thanked them for looking after his niece and nephew, and then turned towards the airship to leave.

Dipper and Mabel remained where they stood.

Stan frowned and turned to them. "What gives?"

Dipper and Mabel looked at each other, and then to Stan. "Well, you see, we promised to help each other..." Mabel's voice trailed off.

Stan grunted. "All right, I get it." To the three, he said, "Get in the plane."

Mabel and the silver haired men climbed aboard the Tiny Bronco with varying levels of enthusiasm. Dipper stuck his hands in his pockets and began to follow after them when he felt a hand on his shoulder.  
"Kid, do you have any questions?" Stan gripped the boy's shoulder tight.

Dipped looked up. "Yeah," he started, feeling anger rising in him. "What's the deal with you owning a teleporter and stashing it in the basement?"

"I knew you'd ask that." Stan crossed his arms and looked away. "You know, Dipper, I had a twin once, too." Dipper looked up.

"His name was Stanley, and we were basically inseparable. Until we found those journals. To save us from them- and ourselves, I guess- we utilized the journal's greatest secret: the teleporter. It sealed away our most terrible discovery, but in the middle if it, something went wrong and Stan fell through the portal." Stan removed his hand from Dipper's shoulder. "I never saw him again." He started at Dipper, his gray eyes cold. "Don't go letting anyone get their hands on that journal, Dipper. It's not a toy. My brother... He's dead because of those journals."

Dipper tried to think of something to say, but nothing came.  
-  
The first thing Dipper did when inside the Tiny Bronco was tell Mabel everything Stan has told him. The next thing he did was look around the Tiny Bronco's passenger space and wonder how his uncle truthfully obtained the palatial airship.

Kadaj and Yazoo had already made themselves quite comfortable on the airship's plush white couches. Loz walked in through the cargo hold and sank into an armchair beside them.

"I put the motorcycles up," he called to the front.

"Whatever," Stan replied. He started the engine.

Dipper sat on the floor across from Mabel. "So what do you think about Stanley?"

Mabel closed her eyes. "I think we were pulled here by some strange force of fate." She elbowed Dipper. "Maybe I'll finally meet the one here, huh?"

Dipper sighed and took out the journal. He flipped through its pages, absentminded.

"Hey, Mr. Kadaj. Where did you tell Uncle Stan to take us?" Mabel asked Kadaj. Dipper looked up from the journal  
.  
The oldest of the silver haired men opened one eye, languid. "Mount Nibel, just up north. We'll be there in no time. If that doesn't work, we're heading even further up north." He closed his eye.

Dipper's eye twitched. "Do you think Gideon or your mother will be there?"

"I have no idea about Gideon, but I feel something very old, and very strong, telling me to go to Mount Nibel," Kadaj responded, his voice bordering on theatrical.

Dipper bit his lower lip and looked up. "Pardon my asking, but do you know anything about your mother?" He tilted his head and muttered. "Beyond that she's a 'goddess' or something... "

Loz sat straight up and put a hand to the hilt of his gunsword. "Was that disrespect?"

"At ease, brother." Kadaj sighed and turned over on the couch.

Loz's angry expression softened. He withdrew his hand and sat back in his chair.

Dipper noticed his question went unanswered, but said nothing about it.  
-  
Even early in the afternoon, Mount Nibel was just as dark, damp, and dreary as Dipper and Mabel expected it to be.

As Stan pulled the Tiny Bronco down for a landing, Mabel squealed with excitement. "Dipper, look! If you look closely at the mountain top, you can see a face!"

"Mabel, that's-" Dipper's words died as he looked out the window at the. "That's Elvis!" he shouted, pointing at the pattern the blue mountain made with its covering of snow.

Mabel shook her head and shrugged. "No way. You know who it looks like to me?"

Behind them, Kadaj bolted up from his nap like a b-movie mummy. "Mother!" he gasped, clutching his chest.

Mabel shrugged. "I was gonna say Sailor Mars, but okay, I guess."

Stan cut power to the engine and the three climbed out into the thin, cold air. Dipper and Mabel huddled together for warmth and peered into the mouth of the cave. The three silver haired men followed after them. Kadaj was twitching.

The six stood outside the cave on the mountain top, hesitating.

"Okay. Now the way I see it, we either charge blindly into a monster infested cave, or die out here of hypothermia," Stan said, shivering as a freezing wind blew over him. "Or we could climb into the airship, and ride away. I like that idea. Who else?" He surveyed the others.

"Shh." Kadaj stepped forward, almost reverently. "There's something here. I know there is." His brothers looked doubtful, but neither protested as Kadaj took another step forward.

Another blast of cold wind hit all if them. Dipper resorted to rubbing his bare arms against Mabel's sweater for warmth.

"I'm coming, Mother!" Kadaj yelled as he took a running leap into the cave.

"Mr. Kadaj! Slow down!" Mabel called, jogging quickly after him.

"Both of you- stop yelling! You're going to tell everything in Mount Nibel exactly where you are!" cried Yazoo. They ran in.

After struggling not to lose his footing on the cave's slippery floor, Stan slowed to a walk and panted. "Is he always like this?" he asked Loz.

"Only on good days," Loz yelled over his shoulder to Stan. He pumped his fist in the air. "Today must be a good day!"

Dipper, keeping in step with Stan, screamed as a brown... thing leapt from the shadows at him. He ducked. Loz drew his sword and shot at the thing, which fell from the trail with a splash. Dipper grimaced. "This is stupid!"

The path was lit faintly by pools of a foreign liquid with a strange glow. "What is that stuff?" Mabel yelled.

"Mako springs, where materia is formed naturally," Yazoo responded.  
"Good night lights!" added Loz.

The group ran deeper in the cave, guided only by Kadaj's mad flight past nests of monsters. After what seemed like an eternity, Yazoo paused.

The other four caught up to him. "What is it, brother?"

Yazoo turned his head. The green light of the mako springs illuminated his pale face. "I can't hear his voice, or his footsteps."

Stan wiped sweat from his forehead and readjusted his fez. "Why?" The silver-haired men shook their heads.

From further down the cave, they heard Kadaj's voice yell, "Jenova!"

Stan's eyes widened. "There's a name I never wanted to hear again," he muttered.

The five cautiously down the path towards where the voice had come from. It emptied into a space that was well-lit, comparatively, containing a multitude of mako springs. In the center was Kadaj, kneeling with his head in his hands. Again, he cried, "Jenova!"

Dipper's eyebrows furrowed. "Where have I heard that name?" He took out his journal and thumbed through it carefully. The mako springs doubled as black light, making the journal's hidden entries visible.  
He stopped at a page with "Experiment Seven" written at the top in intricate cursive. Beneath it, a shaking hand had scrawled JENOVA. Even the cave's poor light, Dipper could make out the page's illustration.   
He took a deep breath.

Stan looked over his nephew's shoulder at the journal and swore. He reached his hands over the journal to obscure it from Yazoo and Loz. "That thing looks exactly like him," he whispered, echoing Dipper's thoughts.

Mabel leaned in and glanced at the journal. "Their mother is one of the experiments?"

Uncle Stan slapped his forehead. "Stan, what did you go and do?"

As though he has just realized they were there, Kadaj raised his head feebly to the group. "Let me see the book," he ordered.

Stan grabbed at Dipper's neck. "Don't do it, kid! I'll disown you!"

Dipper shook himself free and held out the journal to Kadaj. He snatched it away. When he saw the page, he shrieked and fell back to his hands and knees.

"Mother, I'm coming," he moaned, beating his head against the cave floor. His body began glowing a faint blue. The Pines took a step back, looking on in horror as Kadaj began to disappear before their eyes.

Yazoo and Loz nodded to each other and walked towards Kadaj.

"We never did get to play Monopoly." Loz turned to face the twins. "Maybe if you ask Big Brother nicely, he will." He turned away and walked up to Kadaj and tried to help him to his feet. Mabel buried her face in Stan's coat jacket as Loz's body began to glow.

"What's going on?" Dipper yelled to Yazoo. "Why are you doing this?"

Yazoo grimaced and approached his brothers.

"It's our duty to mother," Yazoo answered. "You can't understand the glory of mother's reunion."

He yanked a pair of materia spheres and tossed one each to Dipper and Mabel. "Take these, in memory of the worst brothers on the planet." He rested his hand on Kadaj's shoulder.

What remained of Loz pulled his brothers into a bear hug as the blue light became almost blinding and the trio disappeared into it.


	11. Where Angels Fear To Tread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ominous latin chanting, or something.

There was a man standing where the silver-haired men had apparently disappeared, and he closely resembled all three of them. As the blue light from the ‘reunion’ faded, the man’s angular face and long, thick mane of silver hair became apparent. The twins remembered Loz mentioning a ‘big brother’ earlier, and there was not a trace of doubt in either’s mind that this was him.

“What on earth happened?” asked Stan, hard-nosed as ever.

The silver haired man tilted his head and opened his glowing green eyes wide. “Nothing on earth,” he said flatly. He knelt to pick up Yazoo’s materia case. “Nor heaven,” he added. Dipper realized numbly that the stranger had just picked up his journal, still open to Jenova’s page.

The man began to approach the Pines, but Stan defensively stood in front of the twins and spread his arms wide in front of them. Stan shook his head. “I don’t want to go anywhere, with anyone connected in any way to- Jenova,” he spat, “Especially someone that considers that thing their mother.” Stan narrowed his eyes at the man, who laughed.

“You don’t have a choice. There’s no way you can leave this place alive without me.” He smirked and folded his arms. 

“What about Jenova, huh?” Stan clenched his fists and puffed out his chest. Both twins grabbed onto his arms, trying desperately to hold him back.

The stranger waved his hand dismissively and said nothing.

Stan shook himself free from Dipper and Mabel and took off his eyeglasses. He polished them on the edge of his suit jacket, put them back on, and raised his eyebrows. “All right, pretty boy. You want to come with us. You’ve already said what we get from it. But what about you? Where do you stand to gain?” The strange man opened his mouth to reply, but Stan cut him off. “And don’t you dare say you’re helping us out of the goodness of your heart.” 

The man nodded. “You’re right, of course. But you see, I’ve just risen from the dead. I’ve no wish to go rushing unprepared into a battle with my fated enemy, and nothing else to do in the meantime.”

“You’re bored? Is that all?” Stan rubbed his chin in suspicion. 

Chuckling slightly, the stranger responded, "The foolishness of a god is wiser than men." He sighed. Pulling at his hair almost wistfully, he added, “A wise man once said, ‘If I had but seven hours to cut down a tree, I would spend the first four sharpening my saw.”

Stan looked unconvinced. He turned to Dipper and Mabel and stooped down, then glanced over his shoulder to see if the man was listening. Satisfied that he was not, Stan whispered, “Okay, we’re gonna let Silvertop here guide us back to the Tiny Bronco, then we take off and forget this ever happened.”

Mabel looked nervously at the man. She observed that he was wearing a long (black leather, of course) trench coat, opened to accentuate a sturdy powerful chest. She looked at her own ancient, atrophied uncle and whispered back, “I don’t know, Grunkle Stan. He doesn’t look like the type who’d take being double-crossed well.”

Stan grunted loudly, then covered his mouth and looked over his shoulder, alarmed that he may have heard. "We're not double-crossing anyone. We're just cleverly getting what we want." To Mabel, Stan whispered, “Don’t you dare ignore me again, Mabel. I’m putting my foot down. This guy’s bad news.”

All three stood. Stan approached the man and shook his hand enthusiastically. He proclaimed, “After careful deliberation, my partners and I have unanimously decided to let you come with us, mister…?”

“Sephiroth.”

Stan's smile shrunk by a fraction of an inch. “Sephiroth! Lord god, what is with the names people give their seed here?” Stan said, laughing uncomfortably. He raised his arms in a circle around him and said, “Welcome to the crew of the Tiny Bronco Flies Again, Mr. Sap- Mr. Sif- Mr…”

“Sephiroth,” the man said, sounding bored. “I also answer to ‘sir’, ‘Master’, or ‘Your Omnipotence.’”

Stan sighed. He looked at the twins and barked, “All right, all right, let’s get the lead out, kids!” He clapped and started walking back up the trail they had come from. Mabel followed him close behind.   
Dipper turned hurriedly to leave, but was instantly overtaken by Sephiroth. He pulled at the back of Dipper’s shirt, and Dipper stopped and turned to face him, frightened.

“Yes, sir?” he stammered, hating how high-pitch his voice was. Sephiroth released Dipper’s shirt and pulled a very familiar book out of what was Yazoo’s briefcase.

With a very slight sneer, he stared Dipper right in the eyes and placed it back in the briefcase. It closed loudly. Sephiroth straightened his back and walked on after Stan and Mabel.

Dipper followed after him, feeling the beginning of a headache and utterly confused about what to do next.  
-  
“Well, I’m probably scarred for whatever’s left of my life,” Stan remarked as he emerged from Mt. Nibel into the fresh air.  
“When will we ever learn?” Mabel added groggily as she exited shortly after Stan.

Sephiroth was the next to leave. He adjusted his gloves and yawned. “If I still had my Masamune, it would’ve been a lot faster. But apparently, it vanished or something when I died?” He sighed. “C’est la vie.”

Dipper was the last to leave the cave. He panted and put a hand over his eyes to shield them from the harsh sunlight. Wheezing and scared, he approached Sephiroth.

“Sir,” Dipper began, looking over to Stan. He was checking the engine of the Tiny Bronco and not paying any attention to Dipper at all. “If I get Uncle Stan to agree to let you come with us, I get the journal back, right?” Seeing the bored look on Sephiroth’s face, he quickly added, “You can keep the page on Jenova or whatever.”

Sephiroth curled his lip and sighed. “How are you possibly related to a man that conned Cid Highwind out of one of his airships? But, yes.”

Dipper’s shoulders drooped in resignation. 

He walked over to Stan anxiously. Stan seemed to be having a difficult time with the engine. Stan saw him approach and rapidly stuffed some broken-off part back under the engine hood, which he then closed.  
“There you are, Dipper. Hurry up- we don’t want that freak following us.”

Dipper bit his lip. “About that…”

Stan groaned. He pointed angrily at Dipper. “Oh, no. First Mabel disobeys me and gets us all into this mess. Now you’re disobeying me and letting any white-haired weirdo you come across to get involved in our personal issues. Don’t do it, Dipper.”

He clenched his fists and folded his arms. “He has to come with us, Uncle Stan!” he said, trying to sound tough.

Stan raised an eyebrow. “Oh, he has to? Why? What’s so important about him that you have to go against the man that stole a plane from a mercenary to find you?” Stan banged a fist against the side of the Tiny Bronco.

“Because…” Dipper said quietly, backing away from Stan. “Because, he…”

Dipper backed into Sephiroth and tripped over his feet. He looked down at Dipper, then stepped over him towards Stan.

“Because he promised- or at least, his remnants promised- to help you look for this Gideon,” Sephiroth said, pressing his lips together. “Only the weakest of people break promises.” He looked at Dipper, who was dusting himself off and readjusting his hat.

“I guess I can’t argue with that,” Stan conceded, frowning. Sephiroth smirked and climbed inside the Tiny Bronco.

Dipper looked anxiously at Stan, anticipating an angry speech. Instead, Stan said nothing to his nephew as he walked away from the engine and climbed the railing inside the Tiny Bronco. Hesitantly, Dipper followed him up.

When they were inside the Tiny Bronco once more, Stan closed the door behind Dipper and went to the cockpit silently. Dipper moved to the passenger’s compartment feeling worried, but his worries momentarily vanished when he saw the journal laying on top of one of the bolted-down tales. 

“Only the weakest men break promises,” Dipper whispered to himself. He traced the outline of the golden hand embossed on the cover. Dipper opened the journal, and his heartbeat quickened as he saw that Experiment 7’s page was still in the book.  
-  
“It was six feet long, and made of the finest steel anywhere. My sword was balanced so that only I may use it effectively.” Sephiroth chuckled dryly. “Anyone else who tried to use it ended up looking ridiculous.”

“Wow, this sounds like one of Grunkle Stan’s fishing stories,” Mabel remarked. She was hanging upside down from one of the plane’s plush white sofas. Grunting, she righted herself, then adjusted her sweater. “I’ve gone and gotten my favorite sweater dirty!” she complained.

To say the sweater was dirty was an understatement. Mabel’s once bright yellow sweater had faded to a dull tan. Its fuzzy material had frayed and matted, wearing thin in some places.

“Don’t worry! We can wash it when we get home.” Dipper looked at her.

“If you get home,” Sephiroth remarked, his words muffled by a newspaper he was reading. 

Mabel sunk her head into her knees and moaned loudly. Dipper looked accusingly at Sephiroth.

“Does this seem melancholy?” he asked, looking up from the paper. He seemed to share Yazoo’s affinity for them. “I think it’s far less melancholy than any sort of false self-assurance.” He turned back to the newspaper and folded it up. “Do either of you have a pencil? I want to do the crossword.”

Dipper tugged on Mabel’s sleeve. “We’ll go see if there’s a pencil in the back,” he ventured, more to Mabel than to Sephiroth. He pulled Mabel from the couch and walked her to the back of the white passenger compartment. Mabel sat back down and pulled her head into her sweater. Dipper sat down beside her.

“Mabel, what’s up?” he asked her.

She pulled her head out of her sweater. “I don’t have a pencil, Dipper!” She pulled her head back in.

Dipper sighed good-naturedly. Jokingly, he said to her, “You were just moaning about how dirty that sweater was. Why are you making it dirtier?”

Muffled, Mabel said back, “I guess I’m just in over my head, Dipper.” She pointed at the collar of the sweater. “Get it? Over my head?”

Dipper frowned. “Why do you feel like that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? We’re riding around a completely different planet in a futuristic airplane thing with a really weird guy we saw come back from the dead or something, and our uncle, who apparently had a secret twin brother that just vanished or something.” Mabel pulled her head out of her sweater and looked at Dipper. “And it’s all my fault.”

“Yeah, what was all that about, with the teleporter and stuff?” Dipper asked without thinking.

Mabel hung her head. “I thought that after the dragon thing, you’d never talk to me again, and we’d never ever go adventuring again, and I just figured that whatever was on the other side, we could take on together, and we’d find Gideon, and…” She hung her head. She swallowed nervously. “And you’d stop thinking of me as dead weight and that just messes everything up.”  
“I don’t think of you like that!” 

“Really?”  
“Really. I’m so sorry that I ever made you feel that I did.”

Mabel smiled quickly, then frowned again and looked away.

“What’s wrong now?” Dipper asked, unintentionally harsh.

Mabel sighed. “We’ve put the fighting behind us and made up, and nothing’s changed. Nothing’ better. We’re still here. Gideon’s still out there, and we have no idea where, and…”  
Dipper nudged her gently. “Mabel, we’re twelve now. We can’t go expecting an apology to make everything better now. We just need to make sure we’ve done all we can do, and that’s it. There’s nothing else we can do.”

“So, I guess you’re saying there’s no getting off of this train we’re on now, huh?” Mabel commented, smiling again. Both twins hugged and smiled wide.  
-

“Do you have a pencil?”

“No, I don’t have a pencil,” Stan answered through clenched teeth.

Sephiroth rested against the wall of the cockpit. “I would like to do the crossword puzzle,” he added hopefully.

“Look, buddy, I don’t have a pencil.” Stan did not look away from the sky in front of him.

“A pen would work. I never make mistakes,” the silver-haired man said almost wheedlingly.

Stan slapped the console. “Listen, you walking mass of split ends. I don’t have a pencil.” He looked up. “And even if I did, I would not give it to you.”

How Sephiroth would’ve reacted is unknown, because just then, the Tiny Bronco hit a turbulence pocket. The aircraft shook for a moment before Stan found his bearings on the control and restored balance. He heard the kids laughing from the back, and figured they were okay. He decided to risk turning around again in the hopes that he would see Sephiroth knocked out on the floor.  
“You fly like you’re going blind. Are you?”

Stan turned back around and swore. “What if I am, o ye of the extremely stupid name?” 

Sephiroth grimaced. “I was in the military. General. I can fly an airship,” he said, clearly impatient.

Stan rolled his eyes. “No way in hell am I letting you fly me anywhere!” 

“Don’t let whatever resentment you feel towards Jenova blind you to your current needs,” Sephiroth said calmly, eyebrow raised. If Stan had been looking at him, he would’ve wisely elected to back off, but his gaze was set almost spitefully on the sky ahead of him. 

“You know, the girl in my head is saying some very unsavory things about you.”

“Who? Oh- Aerith. D’accord. You know, she and I shared an afterlife together.” He gripped the back of Stan’s chair tightly. “I repeat. Do not let what has been blind you to what is now.”

“We still talking about airplanes?” Stan asked. He grunted. “Never mind. You know what- thank you for the offer, but I’m doing just fine.”

“And your children? What would happen to them if you were so caught up in the past that you kept on refusing to see anything else?”

“Is that a threat?” Stan asked, alarmed. The plane jerked. Sephiroth removed his hand.

“It was not.” He turned to walk towards the back of the pane. Stan breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed.

“Oh- and by the by, the light for low fuel is on. But you already knew that, didn’t you? You didn’t need something with connections to Jenova to tell you if you don’t make an emergency landing, this airship will crash. Right?”

Stan waited until he heard the cockpit door close to start panicking.


End file.
